an article written by Pablo Fourez, Chief Digital Officer, Mastercard
The next wave of digital commerce is agentic, where intelligent agents help consumers and companies discover, compare and complete purchases seamlessly. And it’s coming at us fast. A few years ago, AI agents were the stuff of science fiction. At last week’s NRF, the National Retail Federation’s annual trade show in New York, it was clear the agentic commerce ecosystem is already moving from experimentation to real commercial infrastructure.
Also last week, we joined forces with Google on its Universal Commerce Protocol, an open protocol that enables interoperability between AI agents and merchants. Protocols like these are essential to scaling agentic commerce, which is why we continue to collaborate across the value chain, including Google’s Agent Payments Protocol and Agent2Agent Protocol, OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol, and more to ensure these platforms meet the same standards for clear user intent, secure credentials and verifiable agent identity.
These protocols protect merchants from fraud, provide transparency and strengthen authentication for issuers, and deliver confidence and convenience for consumers — without adding friction. It also makes payments more personal with real-time, tailored experiences for every user.
Our own tools are powered by these same principles of trust and responsibility. We launched Mastercard Agent Pay last year to deliver smarter, more secure and more personal payments experiences to consumers, merchants and issuers, and now we’re actively working with Microsoft to bring Mastercard Agent Pay to Copilot Checkout. We’re also continuing to work with leaders like OpenAI, Cloudflare and PayPal to further advance secure and intent-driven agentic commerce solutions.
We’re fueling the future of agentic commerce, and we’re not slowing down. These large-scale industry partnerships are critical, but we also need to engage with innovative newcomers who can bring the cutting-edge technology, products and services that make agentic commerce essential for people and businesses.
To accelerate adoption and ensure that our network continues to support that rapid growth, we’re expanding Start Path, Mastercard’s award-winning startup engagement program, to advance agentic commerce and services.
Since its inception in 2014, Start Path has welcomed over 500 companies across more than 60 countries into its portfolio, including many on the cutting edge of AI. Next generation technology companies enabling agentic payments and commerce ecosystems — as well as current Start Path portfolio companies — can unlock a wide range of benefits through the program.
Start Path is a gateway to new connections within Mastercard’s global network of partners and customers, which helps accelerate adoption for novel offerings in new markets and distribution channels. Companies can access bespoke opportunities to collaborate on new products and services tailored for agentic environments and advanced capabilities built for agentic experiences.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
„To be honest I think that Sinaia, your conference, is much better then Davos.”
Many more interesting quotes in the video below:
