Mastercard, Visa, and PayPal just rewrote online checkout. Within 24 hours, all three networks launched agent-ready platforms that let autonomous AI systems shop, decide, and pay for us.
Mastercard: . Tokenized card credentials slip directly into AI workflows. Verified software agents can authenticate, choose the best payment method, and close a sale, whether it is a Copilot-curated birthday outfit or a watsonx-negotiated textile order. Banks, acquirers, and merchants get transparent, traceable transactions in a world where bots (rather than browsers) drive retail.
Visa: . Powered by Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic, Visa’s stack lets consumers hand routine purchases (such as travel, groceries, and gear) to an agent, set spend caps, and issue final approval.
PayPal: . At its Dev Days conference, PayPal open sourced an Agent Toolkit and the first remote Model Context Protocol server. Developers can embed checkout, invoicing, shipping, and dispute flows inside agentic companions running on AWS, Gemini, or Azure. CEO Alex Chriss calls it “the era of agentic commerce.”
Technology is meaningless unless it changes the way we behave. AI agents turn intent ("find me running shoes under $120, deliver by Friday") into action – without a human clicking "buy." This collapses the entire purchase funnel into a single prompt.
This is both good and bad news for retailers. If the agent finds your offering, the upside is enormous: no cart abandonment, hyper-personalized offers, and transaction data flowing in real time. The downside is equally enormous: brand equity will likely shift away from storefronts to whichever agent(s) consumers decide (or consent) to use. I don't think anyone knows how this is going to ultimately play out.
Payments networks aren't waiting to see who wins; they're wiring themselves into the agent layer now.
What's next? Retailers surfacing "agent-readable" catalogs and promotions. An arms race over agent identity, security, and dispute rules. Search and social platforms racing to keep their own commerce pipes relevant.
Behavior has already started to shift. The only question is how quickly these invisible shoppers become your best, or toughest, customers.
As always, your thoughts and comments are both welcome and encouraged. -s
P.S. If you'd like to workshop how your organization can harness the power of agents and agentic systems, just reply to this email.
Shelly Palmer is the Professor of Advanced Media in Residence at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and CEO of The Palmer Group, a consulting practice that helps Fortune 500 companies with technology, media and marketing. Named he covers tech and business for , is a regular commentator on CNN and writes a popular . He's a , and the creator of the popular, free online course, . Follow or visit .
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