Mastercard (MA) is betting that AI agents will soon become active participants in the economy and wants its payments network to be at the center of that change.
The payments giant on Tuesday unveiled Agent Pay for Machines (AP4M), a service that enables AI agents and software systems to make payments to each other securely and at scale. The platform supports automated transactions between cards, bank accounts and stablecoins, while providing identity verification, spending controls and guaranteed settlement through the Mastercard network.
The service arises as technology, payments and cryptocurrency companies compete to build infrastructure for what many call agent commerce, where artificial intelligence systems complete tasks, purchase services and coordinate transactions on behalf of users. By some estimates, brokers could be involved in transactions worth trillions of dollars by the end of the decade.
“We are already seeing a number of services and agents appear to provide a range of products and services,” Raj Dhamodharan, executive vice president of blockchain and digital asset products and partnerships at Mastercard, told CoinDesk. Those services range from booking trips and building websites to creating artwork and completing other digital tasks.
Dhamodharan said the next challenge is building trust between those systems.
Businesses and consumers need to trust that agents are interacting with legitimate counterparties and operating within authorized spending limits. Meanwhile, service providers need to be assured that they will be paid.
“These are problems we’ve solved before in the B2B world and in the card world for decades,” Dhamodharan said. “We’re bringing the same level of trust and ability to find the right set of agents, ability to convey that the payment is actually going to be completed and making sure that people can get paid.”
The platform is designed to address those concerns through accreditation, permitting and settlement services. The company said the system can authenticate agents, enforce spending rules, and settle payments across multiple payment methods, including stablecoins.
More than 30 companies have joined the initiative, including Coinbase (COIN), Stripe, Adyen, Checkout.com, Cloudflare, RippleX, Polygon Labs, Solana Foundation and OKX. Mastercard said the permissions and credentials associated with AI agents will initially be recorded on the Polygon, Solana and Base blockchains.
Although large-scale machine-to-machine commerce remains nascent, Dhamodharan said Mastercard is already seeing signs of demand. He pointed to growing activity around HTTP 402, an emerging Internet payment standard, where automated transactions often fail because no payment method is available.
“Transactions are already taking place,” he said. “There are already a lot of declines happening because there is no payment option available. In our opinion, that is a leading indicator.”
Mastercard said it plans to expand access to Agent Pay for Machines later this year.
