Visa predicts that millions of consumers will use AI agents to complete purchases by the 2026 holiday season

This holiday season marks the end of an era. In 2026, AI agents won’t just assist your shopping—they will complete your purchases

Visa Inc. announced a major milestone in the evolution of AI-powered commerce: „hundreds of secure, agent-initiated transactions have now been successfully completed in collaboration with partners across the ecosystem”. „This breakthrough signals that 2025 will be the final year consumers shop and checkout alone, as AI agent-driven payments rapidly transition from experimentation to mainstream adoption.” – Visa said.

“We are seeing impressive progress in how AI will transform commerce, with many real-world transactions completed by Visa’s deep network of partners,” said Rubail Birwadker, SVP, Head of Growth Products & Partnerships, Visa. “This holiday season marks the end of an era. In 2026, AI agents won’t just assist your shopping—they will complete your purchases, powered by Visa’s global scale, standards leadership, and unparalleled commitment to secure agentic commerce.”

New Visa research indicates that nearly half of U.S. shoppers (47 percent)1 now use AI tools for at least one shopping task – from price comparisons to personalized recommendations – reflecting a profound shift in how consumers discover and evaluate products. With AI-generated traffic surging across retail websites, Visa predicts that millions of consumers will use AI agents to complete purchases by the 2026 holiday season.

This acceleration builds on Visa’s launch earlier this year of Visa Intelligent Commerce, a global initiative grounded in three decades of Visa’s AI leadership in secure payments. Visa remains on track to deliver secure, personalized AI-enabled commerce to consumers by early 2026.

Real-world agentic commerce is already happening

Visa is working with more than 100 partners around the world across the commerce ecosystem; over 30 partners are actively building within the VIC sandbox, and over 20 agents and agent enablers are integrating directly with Visa Intelligent Commerce. These collaborations have already produced hundreds of controlled, real-world agent-initiated transactions—proving the viability of AI-driven purchasing in live production environments.

In the United States, early Visa Intelligent Commerce pilots from agent-enabling partners including Skyfire, Nekuda, PayOS and Ramp are already executing end-to-end consumer and B2B purchases in closed beta:

Skyfire is enabling Consumer Reports’ product recommendation agent to demonstrate a purchase of Bose headphones via browser automation.

Nekuda is allowing fashion lovers on Gensmo’s app to move from AI-styled looks to purchase from Fabrique in a single tap via Rye’s checkout API, and is enabling Henry Labs to integrate a one-click checkout into Price.com and complete purchases at Honeylove via browser automation.

PayOS is providing BeyondStyle with the payment infrastructure to enable agent-driven checkout with online retailer Jomashop.

Ramp is applying Visa Intelligent Commerce to its automation platform for B2B payments, streamlining corporate bill pay operations while allowing its customers to capture cashback on card payments.

No one organization can build this alone, and Visa is empowering an entirely new ecosystem of AI companies to deliver secure agentic purchasing at a global scale.

Expanding Visa Intelligent Commerce globally

Visa has also recently expanded its Intelligent Commerce framework to accelerate adoption of agentic commerce in more markets around the globe. In Asia Pacific and Europe, pilot programs are anticipated to kick off in early 2026, while in Latin America and the Caribbean, Visa is ensuring readiness for consumers to make AI-driven purchases at top merchants in the region over the next year. In the Middle East, Visa is working with Aldar to allow customers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to use AI agents to easily pay repetitive fees like real estate service charges.

Visa is building the backbone for secure, intelligent transactions, ensuring every agent interaction is trusted and secure.

Building standards for trusted agentic transactions

For agentic commerce to reach its full potential, an ecosystem-led approach is paramount. In October 2025, Visa and more than 10 partners introduced Trusted Agent Protocol, an open framework designed on existing web infrastructure that enables safe agent-driven checkout by helping merchants to distinguish between malicious bots and legitimate AI agents acting on behalf of consumers.

Akamai is the latest company to support Trusted Agent Protocol, integrating with its edge-based behavioral intelligence, user recognition, and bot and abuse protection. Together, Visa and Akamai will deliver the identity, authentication, and fraud controls required to let merchants confidently welcome AI agents with commerce intent into their digital storefronts.

1 – This survey was conducted in partnership with Morning Consult between October 14 to October 16, 2025, among a sample of 1,000 adults in 12 markets: U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, France, Germany, Spain, the UK, Australia, the UAE, Singapore, and South Africa. The interviews were conducted online, and the data were weighted based on gender, education attainment, age, and race. Results from the full survey have a margin of error of plus or minus 1 percentage point.