Worldpay Debuts Model Context Protocol to Bolster Agentic Commerce

Worldpay has debuted a tool aimed to promote AI-powered payment integration and agentic commerce.

Worldpay MCP, announced Monday (Nov. 24), is available now via the company’s Developer Hub and Github, letting developers and merchants create artificial intelligence agents and direct payment integrations with Worldpay’s API.

The MCP is an open standard introduced late last year by Anthropic, designed to make AI systems more useful in real-world business settings. It allows artificial intelligence models like Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini to securely connect to business tools, databases and workflows.

“Modern AI models are great at generating text and insights but generally cannot act on live data,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this month in a report on the MCP. “A customer-service chatbot, for example, can explain how to reset a password but cannot perform that action because it lacks secure, structured access to internal systems.”

The protocol addresses that problem by providing AI systems with a way to request and execute actions like retrieving information, updating records or triggering workflows within permitted security boundaries, turning AI from “a passive assistant to an active helper,” the report added.

At the same time, Worldpay said in its release, consumer expectations are shifting toward more autonomous, AI-fueled experiences, with 44% of the shoppers surveyed by the company saying they would let an artificial intelligence bot browse on their behalf.

“Agentic commerce is rapidly emerging as the next evolutionary step in online shopping,” said Cindy Turner, chief product officer at Worldpay.

“By launching Worldpay MCP, we’re answering the demand of developers and merchants, giving them the freedom to experiment, build and innovate in a controlled environment, while connecting directly to our global payment infrastructure. We’re not adding another protocol, we’re making them all work together for sellers.”

At the same time, Worldplay’s survey also found there are limits to what consumers will allow artificial intelligence to do when it comes to shopping. Respondents said they were less likely to use agentic commerce for categories such as travel, concert tickets, clothing and home decor.

Worldpay also announced late last month that it now supports OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), which is an open standard for agentic commerce that allows AI agents, people and businesses to work in concert on purchases.

With ACP, U.S. users of OpenAI’s ChatGPT can shop directly from participating Worldpay merchants using Instant Checkout.

“For agentic commerce to truly scale, it must deliver seamless, secure payments that both consumers and merchants can trust,” Turner said at the time.

For all PYMNTS AI coverage, subscribe to the daily AI Newsletter.