When software pays on your behalf, someone has to prove you said yes. Here is who is building that proof, and what it means for a business that sells online.
The definition
Agentic payments are payments that an AI agent starts and completes on behalf of a person, inside limits that person approved. The agent finds the item, builds the cart and pays. The payment carries proof that a human authorized it, and in the card network programs the merchant can see that an agent was involved. The term covers several competing systems at once, because card networks, payment processors and AI platforms are each building their own piece.
You will also hear AI agent payments, agent pay and agentic checkout. People use them loosely. Agentic checkout is the moment the shopper sees: a buy button inside a chat. Agentic payments is everything underneath that button that makes it safe to press.
Why a card number is not enough
A card number was built for a person typing it into a form. Hand that number to software and three questions appear that the old system never had to answer. Google listed them when it announced its Agent Payments Protocol in September 2025. Authorization: proof that the user gave the agent authority for a particular purchase. Authenticity: proof that the request reflects what the user actually wanted. Accountability: who answers for a fraudulent or incorrect transaction.
The four systems below answer them in similar ways. Each one narrows what the credential can do, with tokens tied to an agent, a merchant or an amount, and each keeps a record of what the person approved.
The four systems behind agentic payments
Agentic Commerce Protocol, from OpenAI and Stripe
OpenAI and Stripe released the Agentic Commerce Protocol on September 29, 2025, alongside Instant Checkout in ChatGPT. It is open source under the Apache 2.0 license. When a buyer pays, Stripe issues a Shared Payment Token scoped to a specific merchant and cart total, and ChatGPT passes that token to the merchant. The merchant accepts or declines the order, charges the payment and handles fulfillment and returns as it normally would. OpenAI says a merchant already on Stripe can enable agentic payments in as little as one line of code, and merchants on other processors can use the Shared Payment Token API or the protocol's Delegated Payments Spec. PayPal announced on October 28, 2025 that it would adopt the protocol too.
Agent Payments Protocol, from Google
Google announced AP2 on September 16, 2025 as an open protocol that can run as an extension of the Agent2Agent protocol and the Model Context Protocol. Its unit of trust is the mandate, a cryptographically signed digital contract that records what the user instructed. When you shop live, your request becomes an Intent Mandate and your approval of the cart signs a Cart Mandate. When you delegate, for example "buy concert tickets the moment they go on sale," you sign an Intent Mandate up front with price limits and timing, and the agent can act once those conditions are met. Google said it was working with more than 60 organizations, including American Express, Mastercard, PayPal, Adyen and Coinbase.
Mastercard Agent Pay
Mastercard launched Agent Pay on April 29, 2025. It introduced Mastercard Agentic Tokens, built on the same tokenization that already powers contactless and card on file payments. Trusted AI agents must be registered and verified before they can pay for their users, and consumers control what an agent is allowed to buy. Mastercard said it would work with Microsoft first, with other AI platforms to follow.
Visa Intelligent Commerce
Visa announced Intelligent Commerce on April 30, 2025. It replaces card details with tokenized credentials that confirm a consumer's chosen agent is allowed to act for them, and it lets consumers set spending limits and conditions for agent transactions. Visa listed Anthropic, IBM, Microsoft, Mistral AI, OpenAI, Perplexity, Samsung and Stripe among its AI partners.
What agentic checkout looks like to a shopper
In ChatGPT, a person asks a shopping question and sees products. If a product supports Instant Checkout, they tap Buy, confirm the order, shipping and payment details, and finish without leaving the chat. OpenAI says users confirm each step before any action is taken, and that payment tokens are authorized only for specific amounts and specific merchants. It launched with single item purchases from US Etsy sellers.
Google started rolling out agentic checkout on Search, including AI Mode, in November 2025, with eligible US merchants such as Wayfair, Chewy and Quince and select Shopify merchants. In both cases the shopper sees two taps. Everything above this section happens behind them.
What changes for the merchant
A few things change, and one of them is easy to miss.
You keep the customer. The Agentic Commerce Protocol keeps the business as merchant of record, in control of which products are sold and how orders are fulfilled. You also get a vote. The protocol lets a business accept or decline transactions per agent, per transaction or by its own logic.
You do not get listed by default. Implementing the protocol does not put your products in front of every agent. Each AI platform runs its own process, and to sell in ChatGPT a business has to apply.
Your fraud rules need a second look. This part is my opinion, not a vendor's. Plenty of fraud rules were written to stop software from buying things. Now some software arrives with a scoped token and a verified identity, and it is carrying your best customer. If your rules cannot tell the difference, they will block the sale and nobody will tell you.
Where I would start
I have negotiated directly with OpenAI, Google, Stripe, PayPal and American Express, and agent to agent checkout is part of the commerce operations work I do. I would not try to pick the winning protocol yet. I would do these four things first.
First, ask your payment processor which agent protocols it supports today. Stripe's documentation, for example, already lists Shared Payment Tokens, the Universal Commerce Protocol and machine payments such as x402. Second, make your catalog, prices and stock readable by a machine, because an agent cannot pay for what it cannot parse. Third, write an agent policy: which agents you accept, for which products, up to what amount. Fourth, buy something from yourself through ChatGPT, Google and Perplexity, and watch where it breaks.
Payments are the last of three tests. An agent has to find you and trust you before it ever reaches the checkout. That framework is laid out in what is agentic commerce, and the shopper side of the same story is in agentic shopping. If you want someone to run all three tests on your business, that is the job of an agentic commerce advisor.
FAQ
What are agentic payments?
Agentic payments are payments an AI agent starts and completes on behalf of a person, inside limits the person approved. The agent builds the cart and pays with a token instead of a raw card number, and the payment carries proof that a human authorized it. Systems include the Agentic Commerce Protocol from OpenAI and Stripe, Google's AP2, Mastercard Agent Pay and Visa Intelligent Commerce.
How do AI agent payments stay secure?
They replace the card number with a token that only works for a narrow purpose, such as one merchant and one cart total, and they record what the person approved. Mastercard requires agents to be registered and verified. Google's AP2 uses cryptographically signed mandates. OpenAI says ChatGPT users confirm each step before any purchase.
What is agentic checkout?
Agentic checkout is the point where an AI agent completes the purchase for the shopper inside the AI interface. In ChatGPT, a shopper taps Buy, confirms order, shipping and payment details, and finishes without leaving the chat. Google began rolling out agentic checkout on Search, including AI Mode, in November 2025.
What is the difference between ACP and AP2?
The Agentic Commerce Protocol, from OpenAI and Stripe, defines how an agent and a merchant coordinate checkout and pass a scoped payment token. Google's Agent Payments Protocol, AP2, focuses on proving what the user authorized through signed mandates, and it can run as an extension of Agent2Agent and the Model Context Protocol. A merchant can meet both.
Do merchants need to change payment processors to accept agentic payments?
No. OpenAI says merchants on Stripe can enable agentic payments in as little as one line of code, and merchants on other processors can use Stripe's Shared Payment Token API or the Delegated Payments Spec without switching. PayPal also announced it would adopt the Agentic Commerce Protocol in October 2025.
Originally published at neilvalentine.com.
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