Key facts
- Mastercard launched Agent Connect to integrate merchants with AI shopping agents.
- The platform facilitates product discovery, cart creation, and consumer-authorized payments.
- Merchants can maintain control over branding, pricing, and customer relationships.
- Mastercard is partnering with Anthropic to develop AI commerce agent blueprints.
- Agent Pay allows AI agents to make payments upon customer authorization.
- Agent Pay for Machines enables automatic transactions between software applications.
Mastercard is expanding its artificial intelligence commerce offerings with the introduction of Agent Connect, a platform designed to streamline shopping and payment processes for merchants and AI agents. This new service aims to provide a single integration point for businesses to connect with various AI platforms, enabling features such as product discovery, cart creation, and consumer-approved payments.
Agent Connect allows merchants to leverage their existing product catalogs and pricing information, reducing the need for individual platform integrations. The system is designed to ensure merchants retain control over their branding, pricing, and customer relationships throughout the AI-driven shopping experience. It is integrated with Mastercard’s broader Agent Suite, which supports AI agents in tasks like order tracking, refunds, and returns.
In addition to Agent Connect, Mastercard is collaborating with Anthropic to develop commerce tools for merchants. Businesses can utilize Anthropic’s agent blueprint with Claude models and Mastercard’s payment capabilities to build AI shopping agents that connect product discovery with authorized purchases, while maintaining control over their digital storefronts. Jorn Lambert, Chief Product Officer at Mastercard, stated that AI agents are poised to transform the buying interface, emphasizing Mastercard's commitment to helping businesses maintain control amidst these changes.
Mastercard has also enhanced its payment services with Agent Pay, which verifies agent permissions via tokenized credentials for customer-authorized transactions. Furthermore, the company launched Agent Pay for Machines, enabling automatic, recurring transactions between software applications, including payments via stablecoins. This initiative is supported by over 30 companies, including major players like Stripe, Coinbase, Adyen, and OKX, highlighting broad industry interest in machine-to-machine payments.
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