There are two aspects to Visa’s announcement: the possibility of having an intelligent shopping assistant, and the disappearance of the physical credit card (to be replaced by tokens). Photo: Shutterstock

There are two aspects to Visa’s announcement: the possibility of having an intelligent shopping assistant, and the disappearance of the physical credit card (to be replaced by tokens). Photo: Shutterstock

With the launch of its “Intelligent Commerce” service, Visa has officially entered into a spectacular dance with Mastercard and Amazon, all of which are seeking to become users’ go-to source not only for payment but also for smart shopping.

“Alexa, buy me an outfit for Saturday’s wedding… and take into account the weather, the dress code and my latest Instagram photos.” Welcome to the age of agentic e-commerce, where the act of buying becomes a simple intention expressed aloud--the rest being orchestrated by an ultra-personalised, proactive and connected artificial intelligence. Visa has taken the next step in the transformation of digital commerce by introducing a new generation of intelligent agents capable of making decisions on behalf of consumers. No more clicks, searches or validations: a simple intention will suffice.

Visa is in fact the latest of three global giants--the others being Amazon and Mastercard--that have unveiled such a service that seeks to redefine the shopping experience. What do they have in common? An agentic approach to e-commerce, where artificial intelligences make decisions on your behalf.

—Amazon’s “Buy for Me” option allows users to delegate their purchases entirely to an AI. Need a gift, a ticket, a specific product? If you can’t find what you’re looking for directly on Amazon, instead of being redirected to another site, the agent takes care of it, analysing your tastes, your calendar, your purchase history… and even your posts on social networks. Purchasing becomes contextual, predictive and ultra-personalised.

—Mastercard’s “Agent Pay” is an infrastructure designed to enable AI agents to make payments on your behalf, within a secure framework. You define the rules (budget, ethical preferences, limits) and the agent acts. Payment becomes invisible and seamless, without users having to intervene.

—Visa’s “Intelligent Commerce” targets event-driven sales: AI spots the products you’re going to like, anticipates when they’ll be put online and finalises the purchase for you. The aim: never miss a release or limited edition again, even if you’re in a meeting or on holiday.

Tokenisation: the key to secure, seamless e-commerce

Behind these innovations lies an essential technology: tokenisation. At both Visa and Mastercard, payment details are replaced by secure digital tokens. These tokens can only be used for a specific transaction, in a defined context.

Why is this important? Because in a world where purchases are made by autonomous AIs, the protection of banking data is becoming crucial. Tokenisation allows the agent to act without ever exposing your sensitive information.

Visa joins forces with AI giants

Visa has announced strategic partnerships with leading AI players OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic and Amazon AWS. The aim: to ensure that all assistants, regardless of their origin, can execute transactions via Visa, in complete security.

With this strategy, Visa is seeking to establish itself as the universal trusted layer of AI-driven commerce, a central position in tomorrow’s digital economy. Other players are also dreaming of this seat, such as Apple, which is deploying described here that will no doubt get it into trouble with regulators at some point.

The consumer no longer navigates, they simply have intentions. The agent does the rest. But this comfort raises new questions: Who controls these agents? What criteria do they use? And do we want to give up the pleasure of choosing? In this new era of shopping, luxury could well become… making your own decision.

This article in French.

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