US-based digital payments firm Visa has launched the Trusted Agent Protocol, a framework designed to facilitate secure transactions between merchants and AI agents.

The Trusted Agent Protocol, which was developed in partnership with Cloudflare, is Visa’s latest initiative to ensure secure interactions within the rapidly developing intelligent payments ecosystem.

The protocol is now accessible via GitHub and the Visa Developer Center.

According to Visa, there is a surge in AI-driven traffic to US retail websites, which has increased by more than 4,700% in the last year, along with positive feedback from 85% of shoppers who have used AI for shopping.

As AI agents increasingly engage in browsing and purchasing on behalf of consumers, merchants encounter a range of new challenges, including the need to manage bot detection systems that may inadvertently block legitimate transactions initiated by these agents.

 Additionally, merchants need to support agent-driven guest and logged-in checkout processes while also ensuring that they preserve visibility into the actual consumer behind the agent, as well as the associated payment data.

To tackle these issues, the Trusted Agent Protocol is said to allow authorised agents to transmit essential information to merchants, enabling the identification of trusted agents with commercial intent and differentiating them from harmful bots.

Visa has collaborated with early partners such as Ant International, Adyen, Checkout.com, CyberSource, Coinbase, Elavon, Fiserv, Microsoft, Nuvei, Stripe, Shopify, and Worldpay to refine the development of this protocol.

The protocol introduces new specifications that leverage agent-specific cryptographic signatures and provide merchant-critical information, including the agent’s intent, consumer recognition details, and payment information to support various checkout and payment methods.

Visa emphasises the importance of an open, ecosystem-wide approach for agents to safely represent consumers.

The company also stated that it is working with partners to ensure that the Trusted Agent Protocol aligns with other protocols, such as the Agentic Commerce Protocol.

The company is also partnering with Coinbase on interoperability with x402.

The Trusted Agent Protocol is based on the HTTP Message Signature standard and is in line with Web Both Auth.

Visa chief product and strategy officer Jack Forestell said: “We believe the entire payments ecosystem has a responsibility to ensure sellers can trust AI agents as much as they trust their best customers and networks.

“For the past year, we’ve worked closely with sellers, issuers and partners to make sure agent-initiated transactions are as seamless and secure as any payment today. Our new agent protocol is focused on creating no-code functionality for merchants to securely identify agents with an intent to buy and provide a better payments and personalised experience for its known users.”

Recently, Visa unveiled its plans to introduce a stablecoin prefunding pilot via its real-time payments platform, Visa Direct.