Mastercard Inc is working with Microsoft Corp and other leading artificial-intelligence companies to give AI agents the ability to shop online and make payments on behalf of consumers.
Under the new programme, a shopper could prompt an AI agent – Microsoft’s Copilot, for example – to search for a pair of yellow running shoes in a particular size. The agent would then search and offer the customer options, and then be able to make the purchase while also recommending the best way to pay, Mastercard said in a statement on April 29.
"Mastercard is transforming the way the world pays for the better by anticipating consumer needs on the horizon,” Jorn Lambert, Mastercard’s chief product officer, said in the statement. The payments company said it’s also working with International Business Machines Corp for business-to-business use cases.
While AI has moved into other realms of e-commerce via advertising, the Mastercard programme specifically cuts down on the time and friction spent searching for a particular item. The AI agents won’t have total autonomy to click "buy”, with consumers still having the final say over what’s purchased, Mastercard said.
"The launch of Mastercard Agent Pay marks our initial steps in redefining commerce in the AI era, including new merchant interfaces to distinguish trusted agents from bad actors,” Lambert said.
PayPal Holdings Inc also said Tuesday that developers are working with leading AI companies to develop similar tools. – Bloomberg
