Visa and OpenAI have announced a new partnership aimed at bringing secure payment capabilities to AI-powered shopping experiences, marking another significant step toward a future where AI assistants can not only recommend products but also help consumers complete purchases.
The collaboration, announced by Visa on June 10, will integrate Visa’s payment infrastructure into OpenAI-powered experiences, enabling AI agents to facilitate transactions on behalf of users. According to Visa, the initiative forms part of its broader Visa Intelligent Commerce program, which focuses on extending secure payment capabilities into emerging digital environments.
Under the partnership, Visa’s global payment network, tokenization technology and fraud-prevention systems will be made available within OpenAI experiences. Visa said this will provide developers and merchants with a streamlined way to accept payments initiated by AI agents while helping to maintain consumer protections and transaction security.
The announcement reflects growing momentum behind what many in the industry are calling “agentic commerce” — a model in which AI assistants move beyond answering questions and recommending products to actively completing tasks, including online purchases.
According to Visa, transactions conducted through these AI-powered experiences will operate within user-defined permissions, policies and controls. Consumers will be able to set parameters such as spending limits, approved merchant categories and requirements for transaction approval before purchases are completed.
“AI will transform commerce more profoundly than the internet or mobile technology ever did,” said Jack Forestell, Visa’s Chief Product and Strategy Officer, in the company’s announcement. He added that as AI agents become active participants in the economy, trusted payment infrastructure will become increasingly important.
The partnership also includes plans for Visa and OpenAI to explore other enterprise-focused applications. Visa said this could include developer-focused experiences powered by OpenAI’s Codex technology as well as more automated conversational workflows.
The announcement comes amid a wider industry push to integrate ecommerce functionality directly into AI platforms. Over the past year, major technology companies including Google, Amazon and Shopify have unveiled initiatives designed to make AI-driven shopping more seamless, allowing consumers to discover products, compare options and potentially complete purchases without leaving AI-powered interfaces.
For merchants, the development could create new opportunities to reach customers through emerging AI shopping channels. If AI assistants become a common starting point for product discovery and purchasing, retailers may need to ensure that their product data, pricing information and checkout systems are accessible to these new digital intermediaries.
However, the shift also raises questions. Merchants could find themselves becoming increasingly dependent on third-party AI platforms for customer acquisition, potentially reducing direct interactions with shoppers. There are also broader concerns around transparency, consumer trust and how purchasing decisions are influenced when AI agents are acting on a user’s behalf.
Visa emphasized that security and consumer control remain central to the initiative. The company said tokenized credentials, real-time authorization processes and fraud monitoring tools will be used to help safeguard transactions and maintain consumer confidence in AI-enabled commerce.
While the partnership does not mean AI agents will immediately begin handling large volumes of ecommerce transactions, it signals that the underlying infrastructure is being built to support that possibility.
Why this matters to ecommerce merchants
This partnership is another indication that AI-powered shopping is evolving from product discovery toward transaction completion. For merchants, that could eventually open up new sales channels and create opportunities to reach customers through AI assistants rather than traditional search engines or marketplaces.
At the same time, merchants may need to adapt to a future where AI platforms play a larger role in influencing purchasing decisions. Ensuring product information is accurate, accessible and optimized for AI systems could become increasingly important as agentic commerce develops.
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Matt Walsh is the Head of Content at Ecommercetrix. He also creates video content for the site and its associated YouTube channel.
Having gained a degree in Literature and Philosophy from Trinity College Dublin and an MA in International Relations from Dublin City University, Matt worked in the marketing world for a decade before taking up an education role — teaching languages, literature and creative writing in London.
Matt is an Adobe Certified Associate in Photoshop and Illustrator, and also holds a certificate in digital marketing from DMI (Digital Marketing Institute), along with a postgraduate certificate in Design Thinking, Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Creative Thinking from Trinity College Dublin.