April 09, 2026
Visa Enables Agentic Commerce at Scale, But Are CX Leaders Ready?
Visa has launched Intelligent Commerce Connect as preparation for the coming wave of AI agents in online retail. The single on-ramp to agentic commerce enables businesses of any size to accept payments from AI agents, make their product catalogues discoverable within AI platforms, and process agent-initiated transactions through a single integration. With agentic commerce now more than just a future consideration, the organisations best placed to benefit will be those that are laying the groundwork to align their customer experiences with these new AI-powered digital experiences.
Independent research points to the scale of what is coming. A study by Bain and Company found that 72% of consumers have already used AI tools, with familiarity growing steadily. Forrester’s Consumer Pulse Surveys tracked consumer use of answer engines for product discovery across 2025, and whilst adoption remains early, for brands seeking visibility in an AI-mediated discovery environment, the window to build the right foundations is narrowing.
What is Intelligent Commerce Connect?
Intelligent Commerce Connect is part of Visa’s broader Intelligent Commerce portfolio. Through the Visa Acceptance Platform, it enables secure payment initiation, tokenisation, spend controls and authentication via a single integration. It processes payments across both Visa and non-Visa card networks, and supports major agent protocols.
The solution lets merchants make their product catalogues discoverable within AI platforms, so consumers can find, select and check out without leaving the AI experience. Visa also takes on orchestration and PCI compliance for enablers processing transactions on merchants’ behalf. Intelligent Commerce Connect is currently in pilot with partners including Aldar, AWS, Diddo, Highnote, Mesh, Payabli and Sumvin.
Andrew Torre, President of Value-Added Services at Visa, summarises the potential benefits to business customers: “Intelligent Commerce Connect brings that same, trusted payment acceptance infrastructure into the emerging world of AI-driven commerce, so businesses can let AI agents buy on behalf of consumers, securely and at scale.”
The Trust Bar CX Leaders Must Clear
Infrastructure may be ready before consumers are. The Bain and Company research uncovered that only 24% of consumers currently feel comfortable using AI to complete purchases, and just 10% have actually done so, mostly for low-value, routine items. Forrester’s report also found that 54% of US online adults are not comfortable sharing personal information with generative AI tools. Payment is a big sticking point, according to a survey from fulfilment provider Radial, which saw 19 per cent of consumers resolving never to share their payment information with an AI agent.
These trust issues are exactly where CX leaders need to be focussing. If a brand can demonstrate to customers that its agentic commerce can be trusted, then it will unlock a huge portion of the market otherwise resistant to engage. It has already been shown that consumers will pay more for brands they deem trustworthy.
While there is a lot of consumer scepticism, it would be a mistake to assume this will derail the technology. There are already substantial pockets of customers willing to leverage agentic AI for their online purchases. Visa’s own accompanying research, the B2AI Report, adds useful insight here, illuminating where consumer confidence is highest. Some 36% of those surveyed said they trust bank-backed AI systems, and 35% trust payment network-enabled AI, compared with just 28% for independent AI agents. Generationally, 48% of Gen Z respondents revealed they trust payment network-enabled AI against just 20% of Boomers. Added up, this already reflects sizeable support for the technology.
The Time is Now
The readiness question, then, is less about whether agentic commerce will arrive and more about whether CX teams will be prepared when it does. This doesn’t mean rushing to deploy AI without adequate governance guardrails, as two-thirds of organisations have admitted to doing. It means building towards a solution that consumers can genuinely trust. Organisations that invest now in transparent, well-governed AI experiences stand to capture early adoption. Waiting for the tension between agentic commerce solutions and consumer trust to play out before taking action will likely relegate you from leader to laggard. After all, it may not be long until CX leaders are less interested in customer experiences as they are the AI agent experiences which represent them.
