Visa has unveiled its Intelligent Commerce platform for Asia Pacific, tackling a growing challenge where merchant websites are overwhelmed by AI agents, making it difficult to differentiate legitimate shoppers from malicious bots. With AI-driven traffic to retail sites surging by 4,700% in a single year, Visa’s regional pilots, set for early 2026, aim to equip businesses with the infrastructure necessary for a future dominated by AI-managed shopping and transactions.

The decision to pilot these agentic commerce capabilities in Asia Pacific reflects the region’s leadership in mobile payments adoption and digital-first consumer habits. This initiative represents a fundamental architectural shift, establishing payment systems capable of handling machine-initiated transactions at speeds and volumes far beyond human capabilities. T.R. Ramachandran, Visa’s head of products and solutions for Asia Pacific, emphasized that "Agentic commerce is transforming the very fabric of online payment transactions, requiring a unified ecosystem to unlock its full potential."

Visa Intelligent Commerce, underpinned by the Trusted Agent Protocol, connects consumers, AI agents, and merchants through secure, scalable solutions. Although 85% of consumers report enhanced experiences using AI for shopping, this excitement highlights the urgent need for merchants to reliably distinguish between legitimate AI purchases and sophisticated bots engaged in fraud or data scraping.

The technical foundation includes integrated APIs covering tokenization, authentication, payment instructions, and transaction signals, forming a new protocol layer for AI commerce. Central to this is the Trusted Agent Protocol, which uses agent-specific cryptographic signatures to verify AI assistants’ legitimate commerce intent and consumer authorization. This layer addresses gaps in traditional payment security systems, which are designed primarily to detect suspicious human behavior.

Visa’s approach emphasizes consumer visibility, ensuring merchants can identify the actual buyer even when AI intermediates transactions, preserving essential data for marketing, loyalty programs, and personalization. The platform is designed as an open, low-code framework, easing integration and fostering interoperability across the expanding ecosystem of AI platforms, payment processors, and commerce applications throughout Asia Pacific.

Collaboration is central to Visa’s strategy. Partnerships with Ant International, LG Uplus, Microsoft, Perplexity, Stripe, and Tencent allow AI agents to authenticate across platforms, securely access payment credentials, and execute multi-service transactions within a single consumer intent. For example, an AI assistant planning a weekend trip could research flights, make hotel bookings, and complete payments while maintaining secure authentication through Visa’s network.

The pilot timeline for early 2026 aligns with evolving regulations across Asia Pacific, anticipating national approaches to AI agent authorization, consumer protection in automated transactions, and cross-border commerce. The insights gained from this deployment are expected to shape global standards for AI-driven retail.

AI-mediated transactions are reshaping online retail assumptions. Traditional consumer journeys, marked by browsing and clicking, are giving way to conversational instructions to AI assistants. Merchants must adapt strategies to cater to AI evaluation patterns, algorithmic comparisons, and agent-driven sales flows. Early integration offers a competitive edge in maintaining customer relationships and refining fraud detection, while delays risk operational disadvantages.

Visa showcased Intelligent Commerce at the Singapore Fintech Festival, highlighting integration requirements. With 4.8 billion Visa credentials potentially accessible to AI agents globally, the Asia Pacific pilot is poised to define the future of agentic commerce. Companies are now auditing payment infrastructures, recalibrating security systems, and rethinking customer experience to accommodate AI-mediated interactions.

Visa’s AI commerce infrastructure is more than a payment method; it represents a foundational shift in digital transactions. As Asia Pacific serves as the proving ground for this transformative technology, insights gained will guide the global adoption of AI-driven commerce and redefine the way consumers, businesses, and AI agents interact.