Visa and Mastercard Put Tokens in Charge of AI Commerce

The race to build agentic commerce is producing no shortage of attention around artificial intelligence (AI) assistants. OpenAI, Google, Perplexity and others want consumers to delegate shopping decisions to software.

Yet before any AI agent can complete a purchase, a merchant, issuer and payment network must recognize that agent as authorized to act. That requirement is turning token service providers into one of the most strategically important layers in digital commerce.

Tokenization has long operated behind the scenes. Consumers rarely thought about the replacement of a card number with a secure credential, and merchants arguably viewed tokenization primarily as a fraud-reduction tool.

But due to agentic commerce, the token is becoming more than a substitute for a payment credential. It is becoming a mechanism for establishing identities among parties that may never directly interact with one another.

Recent PYMNTS Intelligence research with Worldpay underscores why that issue matters. While 45% of consumers report being comfortable allowing AI agents to complete purchases on their behalf, 95% express at least one concern related to agentic commerce. The same research found that half of U.S. consumers would place greater trust in agentic commerce if fraud protections were clearly established. Those findings suggest that consumer interest exists, but confidence in the underlying infrastructure remains unsettled.

The Emerging Role of Token Service Providers

The mechanics of a token service provider (TSP) are relatively straightforward. A TSP issues and manages tokenized credentials that replace sensitive payment information. In traditional eCommerce, that process helps reduce fraud and limits exposure of underlying card data.

Agentic commerce expands the responsibilities attached to that credential.

According to PYMNTS Intelligence’s Prompt Economy research, tokenized credentials can allow consumers to authorize AI agents to make purchases within predefined limits while shielding underlying payment details from merchants. Rather than transmitting account information directly, the transaction relies on a credential tied to permissions established by the consumer.

That may sound like a technical distinction, but the distinction is significant. In a traditional transaction, a merchant knows that a consumer has actively initiated a purchase. In an agentic environment, software may be acting based on instructions provided hours, days or weeks earlier. The merchant therefore needs a way to determine not only whether the payment credential is valid, but whether the software itself is operating with legitimate authority.

The TSP becomes the connective tissue linking those decisions.

Although Visa and Mastercard are approaching agentic commerce through different programs and partnerships, both are establishing a trusted framework for autonomous transactions.

Visa’s recent announcements included Agent Score, Agentic Directory and new token capabilities designed to enrich transaction data and provide assurance signals surrounding agentic purchases. The company also announced partnerships intended to embed Visa credentials into emerging agentic-commerce environments.

The common thread is verification. Visa is attempting to create mechanisms through which merchants and issuers can evaluate whether a transaction originates from an approved participant in an agentic-commerce ecosystem.

Mastercard’s strategy follows a similar logic. PYMNTS recently reported on Mastercard’s partnership with Wizard and Stripe, where Mastercard Agent Pay and tokenized payment credentials are being incorporated into an AI-driven shopping environment. The environment connects product discovery and transaction execution within a framework that maintains visibility into who is acting and under what authority.

Neither firm is trying to own every AI assistant. Both are trying to establish themselves as trusted intermediaries between consumers, merchants and autonomous software.

Control of the Transaction

Consumers may gravitate toward whichever AI assistant offers the best recommendations. Merchants may support multiple agentic platforms. Large language models will continue to evolve. The authorization layer beneath those experiences is likely to prove more durable.

Every autonomous transaction requires identity verification. Every identity requires credentials. Every credential requires a framework for establishing trust.

That is why the growing focus on token service providers moves deeper within the payments stack, where networks, issuers and token providers determine whether autonomous software can transact in the first place. The firms that control that layer of interaction are facilitating agentic commerce and are also positioning themselves to govern how it operates.