Mastercard has launched Agent Pay for Machines with support from Ripple, Solana, Coinbase, and 30+ partners, enabling AI agents to make payments using cards, bank accounts, and stablecoins.
Key Insights:
Mastercard is making one of its biggest bets yet on artificial intelligence. The payments giant has launched Agent Pay for Machines (AP4M), a new payment platform designed to let AI agents buy services, settle invoices, and complete transactions automatically without requiring human approval for every payment.
The initiative launches with support from more than 30 partners, including Ripple, Solana, Stripe, Coinbase, OKX, Adyen, Checkout.com, Cloudflare, Global Payments, and Santander-backed Getnet.
According to Mastercard, AI agents are evolving beyond simple assistants that answer questions or generate content.
The company envisions a future where AI systems can execute entire chains of transactions on behalf of businesses and consumers. For example, a business owner could instruct an AI agent to launch an online flower shop.
The agent could then purchase a domain name, pay for web hosting, buy images, and set up payment infrastructure automatically while staying within a pre-approved budget.
Another example involves logistics. Mastercard says an AI-powered shipping agent could automatically pay freight fees, reserve warehouse space, purchase monitoring data, and settle handling charges as goods move through a supply chain.
These payments may be worth only a few cents each, but they could happen continuously and at a scale far beyond traditional commerce.
One of the most notable aspects of the launch is the participation of major blockchain companies.
Ripple confirmed that it is helping build infrastructure for trusted AI payments using the XRP Ledger and RLUSD stablecoin. In a statement, Ripple said future AI commerce requires more than fast payments.
"As AI agents begin transacting on behalf of businesses, payments need more than speed. They need trust, controls, and clear rules for how value moves."
Ripple added that the XRP Ledger and RLUSD are helping lay the foundation for future agent-driven payment applications.
Meanwhile, Solana, Coinbase, OKX, and several other crypto firms joined the initiative, highlighting how blockchain networks could play a key role in supporting high-frequency machine transactions.
Mastercard believes AI agents could become one of the largest new payment users ever created.
Unlike traditional payments that require human action, AI agents could transact continuously in the background. Software could buy services from other software, creating millions of small payments every day.
Mastercard Chief Product Officer Jorn Lambert believes this shift could unlock entirely new business models.
"Agent Pay for Machines will create the conditions for a superbloom of AI business models."
He added that machine payments could enable extremely high transaction volumes, very small payment values, and near-instant settlement speeds that are difficult to achieve through existing payment systems.
To support this new payment model, Mastercard designed AP4M to work across multiple payment rails. The platform supports cards, bank accounts, and stablecoins while providing credentialing, spending limits, authorization controls, and guaranteed settlement.
Every AI agent must first receive a verified identity before it can transact. Businesses can then define exactly what an agent is allowed to purchase and how much they can spend.
This combination of automation and control is designed to solve one of the biggest challenges facing AI commerce, i.e, allowing software to move money safely without sacrificing trust or security.
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