Mastercard today announced the launch of its Agentic Payments Program, Mastercard Agent Pay. The innovative solution integrates with agentic AI to revolutionize commerce.
Mastercard Agent Pay will offer smarter, more secure, and personalized payment experiences for consumers, merchants, and issuers.
The program introduces Mastercard Agentic Tokens, which build on proven tokenization capabilities that currently power global commerce solutions like contactless mobile payments, secure stored cards, and Mastercard Payment Passkeys, as well as programmable payments such as recurring expenses and subscriptions. This helps unlock a future of agentic commerce where consumers and businesses can transact with confidence, security, and control.
Mastercard will initially collaborate with Microsoft on new use cases to scale agentic commerce, followed by other leading AI platforms. It will also partner with technology enablers like IBM, with its watsonx Orchestrate product, to accelerate B2B use cases.
Mastercard will also work with acquirers and checkout players like Braintree and Checkout.com to enhance tokenization capabilities already being used today with merchants to offer secure and transparent agentic payments.
For banks, tokenized payment credentials will be seamlessly integrated into agentic commerce platforms, keeping card issuers at the forefront of this rapidly evolving technology with enhanced visibility, security, and control.
How it works:
Mastercard Agent Pay will enhance generative AI conversations for individuals and businesses by integrating trusted, uninterrupted payment experiences into the personalized recommendations and insights already provided on conversational platforms.
This means that for someone about to turn 30 planning their birthday party, they can now chat with an AI agent to proactively select clothing and accessories from local boutiques and online retailers based on their style, venue atmosphere, and weather forecasts. Based on their preferences and feedback, the smart agent can make the purchase and also recommend the best way to pay, for example, using Mastercard One Credential.
A small textile business can use its AI agent to handle suppliers, optimize payment terms, and manage logistics with an international supplier. From there, the AI agent can complete the cross-border purchase using a virtual Mastercard corporate card token and arrange expedited and cost-effective delivery.
By identifying and validating a customer using Mastercard’s tokenization technology, a retailer can offer a consistent shopping experience, adding benefits like recommended products, free shipping, rewards, and discounts.
What this means:
Mastercard will work with Microsoft to integrate Microsoft’s leading AI technologies, including Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service and Microsoft Copilot Studio, with Mastercard’s trusted payment solutions to develop and scale agentic commerce, meeting the evolving needs of the entire commerce value chain.
Based on the company’s commitment to responsible AI, Mastercard Agent Pay will ensure that payments made within AI platforms are secure and transparent at every stage of the transaction—before, during, and after.
Diving deeper:
Secure registration and authentication of trusted agents:The program will require trusted AI agents to be registered and verified, and after this step, they can make secure payments on behalf of their users.
Enabling secure and protected transactions: Enhanced tokenization technology will allow payments to be initiated through conversational interfaces and completed at millions of merchants of all sizes that support online commerce today. All players in the value chain, from consumers to issuers and merchants, will be able to recognize transactions facilitated by smart agents, offering greater transparency.
Establishing clear rules for consumer control:Consumers will have full control over what the agent is authorized to purchase on their behalf, ensuring that the payments they make are securely authorized and identified.
Protecting against fraud and supporting consumer disputes:Mastercard’s world-class cybersecurity, security, and authentication capabilities will protect merchants and consumers against bad actors end-to-end. This will include using AI agents to facilitate strong consumer authentication leveraging on-device biometrics and a process to help clarify agentic transactions that may be unknown or unrecognized.
“Mastercard is transforming and improving how the world pays, anticipating consumer needs,” said Jorn Lambert, Mastercard’s Global Head of Products. “The launch of Mastercard Agent Pay marks our first steps in redefining commerce in the AI era, including new merchant interfaces to distinguish trusted agents from bad actors using agentic technology.
Recognizing the seismic implications of this evolution, we look forward to collaborating with industry players to advance agentic payment standards, such as applying the Model Context Protocol for Secure Remote Commerce. This establishes the foundation for scale and builds trust in agentic commerce.”
What’s next?
As agentic commerce evolves, Mastercard is committed to continuous and responsible innovation in this space—enabling use cases and keeping an eye on the future.
