Mastercard extended its payments network to autonomous AI agents on Wednesday, unveiling Agent Pay for Machines (AP4M) with more than 30 launch partners spanning crypto infrastructure, stablecoin issuers, payment processors and DeFi protocols.
The company announced the launch Wednesday morning via its official X account, naming Coinbase, RippleX, Stripe, Solana Foundation, Polygon, Aave Labs, OKX, Stellar, MoonPay, Adyen, Alchemy, Anchorage Digital, Ant International, Checkout.com, Cloudflare, Crossmint, Getnet by Santander, Global Payments, Nevermined, Rain and Utila among its 31 initial participants.
"Launching with 30+ partners to bring this to life from day one. This isn't just more payments. It's a new operating model for commerce," Mastercard said.
Agent Pay for Machines (AP4M) positions Mastercard's network as the governance and trust layer for commerce conducted entirely between software agents, without human checkout flows. The system covers four functions: credentialing registered agents, permissioning what they can spend, transacting via card and account rails, and settling in either traditional currencies or stablecoins.
Mastercard described its ambition in scale terms.
