AI-Powered Payments: A New Era of Commerce Emerges

The payments industry is on the verge of a significant transformation as artificial intelligence (AI) agents start making transactions without human intervention. This development has set off a competition among established payment networks, including Visa, Mastercard, and Coinbase, to secure control over the next layer of digital payments.

Industry analysts estimate that the agentic commerce market could reach $3 trillion to $5 trillion by 2030, making it an attractive space for major players. The battle is not just about traditional card networks versus crypto infrastructure providers; rather, it's about who will control the underlying mechanisms of transactions, including authorisation, tokenisation, and settlement.

Each player has its strategy to adapt to this new landscape. Mastercard is focusing on extending its existing payments infrastructure into the AI era through its Agent Pay framework, which allows AI agents to transact using tokenised payment credentials while remaining subject to Mastercard's security and risk systems. Meanwhile, Coinbase is pursuing a model built around crypto and stablecoin infrastructure, aiming to enable machine-to-machine transactions with lower transaction costs.

Visa is also building its own AI payment infrastructure, adapting existing payment rails to support automated and agent-driven commerce while maintaining regulatory and security frameworks. The company's recent launches and infrastructure initiatives indicate its commitment to this emerging market.