Mastercard’s Agent Pay solution, unveiled in April, will soon debut globally, with Citi and US Bank customers being the first to test AI-enabled shopping features.
Citi and U.S. Bank Mastercard cardholders will be among the first to experience AI-enabled e-commerce payments within Mastercard’s Agent Pay program, which is expected to launch in the U.S. by the holiday season and expand globally later on.
This information was revealed as Mastercard introduced a set of new tools and partnerships designed to support the growth of agentic commerce, where AI agents can make purchases on behalf of consumers. The company is working with partners, including Stripe, Google, and Ant International’s Antom, to make these transactions secure and scalable.
To help accelerate adoption, Mastercard is launching a set of Agent Pay functionalities:
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Agent Toolkit to simplify integration of Mastercard APIs into AI workflows.
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Agent Sign-Up to give developers easy access to AI-enabled Mastercard services.
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Insight Tokens to let AI agents use permissioned consumer data securely, with consent.
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Consulting Services to support issuers, acquirers, merchants, and AI providers in developing agentic payment solutions.
Mastercard’s Agent Pay program will require AI agents to be registered and verified before they can make secure payments on behalf of users. The company envisions a variety of potential applications ranging from personal shopping to business use cases such as sourcing, optimizing payment terms, and managing logistics.
Agentic Tokens used for this program are an extension of Mastercard’s existing tokenization technology already used for mobile tap-to-pay, stored cards, and secure online logins. These tokens also enable automated transactions like subscriptions and recurring bill payments. By integrating tokenized credentials into agentic commerce platforms, Mastercard aims to make automated AI-driven transactions safe, seamless, and widely accessible.
The initiative is backed by collaborations with major technology providers. Microsoft will contribute its AI infrastructure, including Azure OpenAI Service and Copilot Studio, while IBM will support B2B applications through its watsonx Orchestrate platform.
Mastercard is also collaborating with industry groups such as the FIDO Alliance to establish standards that ensure agentic transactions remain secure, transparent, and trusted.
