Alchemy, the company often described as the “AWS of Web3,” has plugged its new AI payment middleware directly into Visa’s agent commerce infrastructure. The product, called AgentPay, lets AI agents conduct transactions across traditional payment networks without requiring merchants to build custom integrations for each one.
What AgentPay actually does
Merchants register their existing APIs once and get access to a single endpoint that works across multiple payment protocols. Instead of building separate plumbing for Visa, Coinbase, Stripe, Circle, and whatever comes next, merchants plug into Alchemy’s layer and let it handle the routing. The platform is protocol-agnostic, meaning it doesn’t care whether the transaction runs on traditional rails or blockchain-based systems.
One critical distinction: Alchemy doesn’t touch the money. The company operates purely as a translation layer, routing instructions between AI agents and payment processors without ever holding or moving funds directly.
AgentPay launched in April 2026 and moved into open beta by late April, supporting Visa’s infrastructure alongside related systems like Visa’s Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) and x402. The integration with major players like Coinbase, Stripe, and Circle means the platform already connects to a significant portion of both crypto-native and traditional payment volume.
