Last week, Visa used its Global Product Drop to highlight how it is using AI to improve the consumer shopping experience.
“As new ways to pay emerge, they need to run on a network that is always on – that is safe, secure, scalable and relentlessly innovating,” said CEO Ryan McInerney. “We are taking the power of our network and our decades-long expertise to bring new products and solutions that will transform commerce and bring trust and security to AI-enabled payments.”
Product roadmap
Visa kicked off its Global Product Drop by sharing how the combination of AI and digital commerce will mark a significant shift in the way consumers discover and buy products and services. Soon, consumers will enable AI agents to browse, select, purchase and manage on their behalf. For this to be possible, agents will need to be trusted with payments, not only by users but also by banks and sellers. Visa pledged to bring this trust to AI commerce by providing a simple way for our partners – AI platforms, tech players, banks, fintechs, merchants and more – to access the Visa network.
The company introduced Visa Intelligent Commerce, an initiative that opens the payments network to developers and engineers building AI-based commercial solutions. Visa also announced new stablecoin partnerships to reach more people and geographies. Finally, it shared the expansion of its Flex Credential platform, and new products and services that provide more ways for people to pay and get paid.
Visa Intelligent Commerce
In the last 25 years, the network has processed 3.3 trillion transactions. The company will extend the infrastructure, standards and capabilities present in physical and digital commerce today to AI commerce. Soon, consumers will enable AI agents via AI platforms to use a Visa credential (of which there are 4.8 billion today) at any accepting merchant location (currently totalling over 150 million) for any payment use case.
“Historically, (we’ve) used AI to protect consumers, harnessing it to help combat fraud. Now, we will also enable AI to empower consumers, fundamentally shifting digital commerce to make it more personal, more relevant and more delightful,” added McInerney. “For any AI commerce use case to take hold, the payment is a critical enabler of success. If there is no payment, there is no commerce. That’s the expertise and trust that Visa brings.”
The company’s partners include Anthropic, IBM, Microsoft, Mistral AI, OpenAI, Perplexity, Stripe and Samsung.
“We see tremendous potential for the role AI agents will play in commerce, from streamlining ‘regular’ transaction-driven tasks such as ordering groceries, to more sophisticated search and decision-making like securing that hard-to-get restaurant reservation or concert ticket,” said Jack Forestell, chief product and strategy officer. “This will be a transformative change, bringing more magic and convenience to the consumer experience and creating a new world that will forever change how we shop and buy.”
New products, advancements and capabilities
Stablecoins: For five-plus years, Visa has been facilitating crypto transactions and is expanding the applications for stablecoins with stablecoin-linked cards, settlement and programmable money. Bridge, a Stripe company, is working with it on a new card product that enables fintech developers to offer stablecoin-linked cards to end customers in multiple countries through a single API integration.
Flex credential expansion: Last year, the company introduced Flex Credential, a card that toggles between payment methods. Today, millions of people around the world are using the Flex Credential and Visa plans to roll out new use cases like expanding access to lines of credit, investment accounts, rewards, commercial cards and more.
Unveiled today, Visa and Klarna are partnering to bring the Flex Credential to the U.S. and will be the first in Europe to offer a debit-to-buy-now-pay-later use case. More details will be announced later this year.
Introducing more ways to pay and get paid: The company announced ways for consumers, merchants and partners to pay and get paid around the world.
Visa Pay is a new service designed to connect any participating wallet to any Visa-accepting merchant, local or international, in-store or online. It is set for beta release in select markets in Asia, Europe and Latin America.
Visa Accept is a new offering to give micro-sellers a “way to get paid” to their eligible Visa debit card, from any NFC-capable smartphone with just a few clicks, providing access to billions of credentials with just one card in your pocket. Visa Accept is being released for beta partners in July, with the first activations in Latin America and Asia.