What if your credit card could think for you?
Visa just unveiled a bold new vision for the future of shopping. Imagine a world in which AI agents browse, buy, and manage purchases on your behalf. This is not a concept. It is happening now.
At its first-ever Global Product Drop last week, Visa unveiled its sweeping “Visa Intelligent Commerce,” initiative, which aims to reimagine how customers shop, pay, and interact with brands in an increasingly AI-driven world. Collaborating with major players like OpenAI, Perplexity, Mistral, Microsoft, and IBM, Visa made clear that it does not intend to sit on the sidelines of the generative AI revolution. Instead, the company is leaning in. Visa is opening up its payment infrastructure to developers, laying the groundwork for a new generation of AI-powered interactions.
But what does this actually mean for the day-t0-day shopping experiences, and what are some broader implications for financial services and beyond?
Agentic AI and the Next Evolution of Shopping
Visa’s Intelligent Commerce is built around the concept of “agentic AI.” Put simply these are autonomous digital agents that can handle everything from browsing and selecting to buying and managing purchases. Think of a virtual assistant that knows your purchasing habits and can act accordingly without your constant supervision.
Visa’s AI-ready cards, which replace traditional card numbers with tokenized credentials, are central to this. These credentials authorize trusted AI agents to act on a consumer’s behalf with security and identity verification built in. The result is an experience that is less “simple, not seamless” according to CEO Ryan McInerney.
This isn’t theory. Visa is opening its payment rails and APIs to developers, effectively inviting the ecosystem to build the tools of this future, whether that is a personal travel planner, a smart grocery restocker, or a digital wardrobe curator.
How AI-Driven Commerce is Pushing Incumbents to Act Like Startups
For years, the consensus was that legacy financial institutions could not compete with startups on speed. Visa’s Demo Day challenges that assumption. From the polished product launch format to the rapid collaboration with leading AI firms, Visa is showing it can move with startup-level agility when the stakes are high.
This shift has meaningful implications for early-stage fintechs. Speed alone is no longer a defensible advantage. If a startup is not commercial-ready from day one, it may need to reassess its go-to-market strategy. As has been proven time and time again, many fintechs are not as innovative as they claim. Companies that are simply filling UX gaps should continue to expect to see larger players closing this gap more quickly than ever.
The Ethics and Experience of AI-Driven Commerce
Visa’s vision of frictionless AI-powered shopping raises deeper questions about consumer agency and values. What happens when buying becomes automatic? Can brand loyalty survive when algorithms prioritize speed and convenience?
To date, there is little infrastructure for expressing consumer values—such as preferences for cruelty-free or sustainable products—within AI agents. While platforms like Ethic and JustInvest have explored values-aligned investing, Visa’s CPO Jack Forestell noted that this kind of preference expression is not yet in the product roadmap. But it should be. Capturing intent and aligning purchases with values could be the next major frontier in personalization.
Financial Wellness and Era of AI-Driven Commerce
The promise of Intelligent Commerce also brings inherent tensions. Visa emphasizes a number of user controls including spending limits, AI credential authorization, and real-time transaction signals. These features are designed to offer both security and peace of mind. But cynics will argue that Visa, like most payments platforms, profits from higher spend, not restrained consumption.
Yet there is strategic upside to encouraging long-term financial wellness. Consumers who feel Visa has their back may stay within its ecosystem longer, fostering brand loyalty in an era of commoditized payments. This aligns with a broader trend of platforms positioning themselves as “financial wellness” partners, not just transaction enablers.
The Real Estate Gap in AI Payments
Notably missing from Visa’s AI roadmap is real estate. The average American now spends nearly one third of their income on rent. This is an all-time high.
Despite attempts by startups like Bilt to make rent payments more accessible via credit, the sector remains fragmented. Bilt’s success has required heavy capital and steep customer acquisition costs, raising the question: How long can first-mover advantage last?
With 44 million U.S. households paying rent and the median mortgage payment hovering above $2,000, this is a massive blind spot in the AI commerce story. Until AI can manage recurring housing payments with the same ease as groceries or flights, the vision remains incomplete.
Will AI Supplement or Supplant Human Touch?
Visa’s Intelligent Commerce imagines a world where AI handles our everyday transactions. But will that future eliminate the need for human input? Just as the rise of search did not kill curation, and mobile banking did not end branch relationships, agentic AI may supplement rather than supplant. There will still be demand for white-glove experiences, emotional nuance, and human judgment. This is likely to especially be true in high-stakes purchases or values-driven decisions.
In the meantime, Visa has fired a clear signal: AI-driven commerce is not a distant future. It is a fast-arriving present. And incumbents are not just watching – they are building.
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