Published June 11th, 2026 - 09:59 GMT
ALBAWABA - In AI’s next step into our lives, Visa plugged its payment network to ChatGPT to allow AI agents to fully shop and pay for users.From plane tickets to diapers, AI will have the ability to independently shop and complete the transaction without requiring any input from users, marking a new breakthrough for AI in managing human affairs.Visa has previously tested this technology, limiting it to a single retailer or a small set of merchants. OpenAI as well had attempted a foray into e-commerce with their Instant Checkout late last year.The software, which allowed ChatGPT to find a desired item on the internet and purchase it like a digital personal shopper; but as the process was prone to errors, along with an expensive fee, it was not widely adopted and shelved.But this time it seems to be different, with Visa allowing users to link their cards to ChatGPT making the whole process easier for merchants and users; Visa will handle the payment authorization and fraud monitoring and ChatGPT will provide the technology to allow agents to interact, make decisions, and initiate purchases.“As AI agents become active participants in the economy, Visa’s focus is to ensure transactions are trusted, secure and seamless,” said Jack Forestell, chief product and strategy officer at Visa.“I think we’re generally at a place where most people are very comfortable with the shopping aspects of it and have discovered this as a superior discovery experience,” Forestell said in an interview. But, he added, making the leap from having AI agents recommend what to buy to doing the purchasing “just requires a whole different level of trust. But that all comes from the underlying infrastructure, the process, the security that we build into it and the rules,”
