Ant International, Visa and Mastercard target AI payment standards

Ant International is teaming up with Visa and Mastercard to work on common standards for payments made by artificial intelligence agents, a step that suggests major industry players want shared rules in place before such transactions become routine.

The effort centres on the plumbing that would sit behind AI-driven purchases, including ways to confirm that an agent is authorized to act on a user's behalf and methods for monitoring the transactions it initiates. Those questions have become more pressing as software assistants gain the ability to shop, book and pay for things without a person clicking through each step.

Getting the three parties onto the same page matters because payment systems only function when they are widely accepted. Without common technical standards, banks, merchants and wallet providers could end up building separate and incompatible arrangements for the same kind of transaction, which would slow adoption and add friction for consumers.

The announcement points to an industry trying to set ground rules early rather than waiting for AI commerce to scale and then untangling competing systems. Details on timing and scope remain limited, and it is not yet clear how quickly any agreed standards would reach merchants and everyday users.