Visa CEO Says AI Shopping Has Arrived but Agentic Payments Haven't

Consumers are using AI to shop, but Visa CEO Ryan McInerney says they aren't yet handing autonomous agents control of payments. McInerney identified sizable remaining markets in consumer payments, Visa Direct and higher-value B2B cross-border transactions. Cloud cores, global issuer processing, tokens and stablecoins are broadening the infrastructure available to banks and FinTechs. Artificial intelligence may be changing where consumers decide what to buy before it changes where they pay for it. Get the Full Story Complete the form to unlock this article and enjoy unlimited free access to all PYMNTS content — no additional logins required. yes Subscribe to our daily newsletter, PYMNTS Today. By completing this form, you agree to receive marketing communications from PYMNTS and to the sharing of your information with our sponsor, if applicable, in accordance with our Privacy Policy and Terms and Conditions . “We are seeing adoption for shopping, but not yet for autonomous payments,” Visa CEO Ryan McInerney said Tuesday (Sept. 8) at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference. Consumers are using large language models and other platforms to compare products, shop and identify items, McInerney said, but are still moving to sellers’ websites to complete transactions. Getting beyond that point presents a trust problem on both sides. Sellers need to know that agents entering their sites are legitimate and have been empowered by consumers to transact. Consumers have to trust agents with their money and financial information. “The barrier to that, if I had to describe it in one word, would be trust,” McInerney stated during the appearance at the conference. He said three-quarters of consumers surveyed didn’t trust agentic platforms to make payments autonomously with their money and financial information. When asked whether they would trust an agent to make payments if Visa were involved, 61% said yes. McInerney said that figure exceeded 70% among consumers who use LLMs at least weekly. Fraud prevention is also moving further upstream. McInerney said Visa has traditionally provided banks and merchants with tools to identify transaction fraud, while clients are now seeking products that address identity risk before it results in a fraudulent transaction. “Identity has become a critical area of vulnerability,” he said in discussing Visa’s planned BioCatch acquisition. McInerney said BioCatch can help clients protect identities on mobile devices before identity theft leads to a fraudulent transaction. Cybersecurity ranks among the most pressing issues McInerney hears from financial institutions, which he called a “top 3 issue” for every client he talks to around the world. Visa is also applying newer AI tools internally. McInerney said its teams are producing 80% more code commits, reducing the time required to design and build a product by 80% and developing features 65% faster. Tokens Give Payment Networks Another Route to Customers Tokens are also giving Visa a way to distribute services beyond the payment credential itself. “As we’ve scaled our tokens around the world, that gives us a distribution platform for more risk-and-identity solutions, as well as transaction solutions,” McInerney said. He said Visa has captured only a “very low single digits” share of the addressable markets it sees across issuer services, acceptance, risk and identity, and advisory. Global credential growth has been running at roughly 6% to 7%-plus, which McInerney said helps fuel further growth in issuing revenue. We’d love to be your preferred source for news . Please add us to your preferred sources list so our news, data and interviews show up in your feed. Thanks! Add as Preferred Source Processing represents another part of that expansion. McInerney said two issues ...