Mastercard and Visa roll out agentic checkout payments that let authorized AI agents make purchases using virtual cards with customer controls

Deployment Provisional 78% confidence first seen 18 September 2026, 22:45

Mastercard and Visa introduced “agentic checkout” payments intended to allow AI agents to shop on consumers’ behalf using virtual cards while requiring user-configured controls. Mastercard’s update lets cardholders set purchase limits and approval or retailer restrictions, and the coverage also notes a compliance-focused interoperability effort involving Ant International to help banks verify which authorized agents are making transactions.