Ant International has announced a strategic partnership with Visa and Mastercard to develop new standards for payments made via AI agents, reflecting expectations that AI-driven commerce will reach between $3 trillion and $5 trillion globally by 2030, according to McKinsey projections cited by the companies [1]. The collaboration aims to address key challenges in verifying AI agents, monitoring their behavior, and enabling interoperability across different payment systems. Jiang-Ming Yang, chief innovation officer of Ant International, emphasized the importance of trust in AI transformation, noting the risk of AI 'hallucination' and the need for robust safety measures [1].
The initiative will focus on creating a 'know your agent' framework, which links each AI agent to a valid entity, assesses agent behavior, and monitors their activities. This is intended to allow seamless operation across payment networks, so that an agent registered with one provider (such as Ant) does not need to re-register with others like Visa or Mastercard [1]. Pablo Fourez, chief digital officer at Mastercard, highlighted the necessity of interoperability in these frameworks to enable agentic commerce at scale [1].
In the past year, Visa, Mastercard, and Ant International have each launched their own protocols for secure AI agent payments. While Visa and Mastercard dominate developed markets, Ant International has partnered with over 50 e-wallets, which are more prevalent in developing economies and are increasingly linked to credit cards [1]. Digital wallets accounted for 56% of global e-commerce value and 33% of point-of-sale value in 2025, totaling over $13 trillion in spending, according to Worldpay [1].
The announcement also follows recent product developments, such as Alipay's new AI feature allowing users to automate Starbucks orders, demonstrating the growing integration of AI in consumer payments [1]. Ant International, which separated from Ant Group nearly three years ago, continues to expand its influence in the global payments ecosystem through such innovations and partnerships [1].
CONCLUSION
The partnership between Ant International, Visa, and Mastercard marks a significant step toward standardizing and securing AI-driven payments, with the potential to reshape global commerce. With trillions of dollars at stake and digital wallets already dominating e-commerce, the collaboration is poised to accelerate the adoption of AI agents in payments while addressing critical trust and interoperability challenges.