An artificial intelligence agent has moved beyond recommending suppliers and completed an actual business purchase in Greater China, carrying out tasks that would typically require several separate procurement and payment steps.
Visa and Hong Kong-listed Lianlian DigiTech said Lianlian’s LoopXPay agent completed what the companies described as the first live business-to-business agentic transaction in the region, highlighting how AI-enabled commerce could streamline purchasing and payments for small and medium-sized businesses.
The transaction involved sourcing a product sample from a supplier.
LoopXPay identified the purchasing requirement, recommended suitable suppliers, compared options, placed the order and securely executed the payment within a single workflow.
The agent operated within pre-defined spending controls and approval parameters, allowing the business to reduce manual work while retaining visibility into the commercial decision-making process.
The test reflects growing efforts by payment companies and financial technology providers to build infrastructure for an “agent economy”, in which AI systems do more than provide information and are authorised to carry out commercial activities on behalf of businesses.
For smaller companies, the technology could be particularly useful because many lack dedicated procurement teams and spend valuable time sourcing products, comparing suppliers, completing purchases and making payments themselves.
However, the wider use of autonomous agents in commerce will also require businesses and merchants to know whether the software conducting a transaction is legitimate, operating within approved parameters and subject to appropriate oversight.
Visa said LoopXPay has been registered in its Agentic Directory, enabling participating businesses and merchants to identify verified AI agents within the ecosystem.
The directory supports the implementation of Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol, which is intended to provide greater transparency into agent-driven interactions and confidence that participating agents have met Visa’s requirements.
“AI-powered commerce experiences can help businesses simplify purchasing and payments while maintaining the controls and oversight they require,” said Darren Parslow, Visa’s global head of commercial solutions.
“For SMBs, that means less complexity in managing day-to-day commercial activities and more time focused on growth,” he added.
Parslow said trust would become a critical enabler of adoption as businesses increasingly embed intelligence into purchasing and payment experiences.
Visa and Lianlian are exploring how AI agents could support a broader range of commercial activities, including procurement, digital advertising optimisation and B2B platform payments.
The companies said the goal was to advance trusted commerce through greater efficiency, transparency and control.
Lianlian founder, chairman and chief executive Zhang Zhengyu said AI was reshaping the entire commercial value chain, with a growing number of business activities expected to be autonomously executed by AI agents.
He said payments would serve as the critical infrastructure connecting those agents to global commerce.
Lianlian is building AI-native financial infrastructure spanning identity verification, transaction authorisation, intelligent payment and global fund settlement, according to Zhang.
Founded in 2009, Lianlian listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2024.
The company has a global licensing portfolio comprising 68 payment licences and related qualifications and holds a virtual asset trading platform licence issued by Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission.
Lianlian supports services in more than 200 countries and regions, enables transaction settlement in over 140 currencies and connects with more than 180 global e-commerce platforms.
It has served more than 13.3 million customers, according to the announcement.