Visa has entered into a strategic collaboration with cloud computing and cybersecurity firm Akamai Technologies to secure the emerging sector of “agentic commerce”—where autonomous AI agents browse, compare, and purchase products on behalf of consumers.
The partnership aims to solve a critical challenge facing online merchants: distinguishing between legitimate AI shopping agents and malicious automated bots. By integrating Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol with Akamai’s behavioral intelligence and fraud protection controls, the collaboration seeks to provide the identity and authentication layer necessary for merchants to safely welcome AI shoppers.
The rise of the machine shopper
The move comes as AI-driven traffic surges. According to Akamai’s 2025 Digital Fraud and Abuse Report, AI-powered bot traffic has increased by 300 per cent over the past year. In just a two-month period, the commerce industry experienced more than 25 billion AI bot requests.
Without a reliable way to verify the intent and identity behind this traffic, merchants risk blocking legitimate sales or falling victim to fraud.
“Agentic commerce is unlocking an entirely new wave of digital interactions, but it can only scale if every player in the ecosystem can trust the agents participating in it,” said Jack Forestell, chief product & strategy officer at Visa. “By collaborating with Akamai to deploy Trusted Agent Protocol, we’re delivering the real-time intelligence merchants need to support AI-driven experiences without introducing new risk.”
Solving the dual-identity challenge
The core of the partnership involves solving what Patrick Sullivan, CTO of security strategy at Akamai, calls the “dual-identity challenge”.
“We prove both who the agent is and, critically, who it represents. This is what transforms AI agents from novelties into trusted economic actors,” Sullivan explained.
The combined solution offers three primary benefits to merchants:
- Clear Identification: Differentiating between an agent that is merely browsing versus one ready to pay, using behavioral anomalies to spot bad actors.
- User Linkage: Connecting the verified AI agent to the underlying human consumer via the Trusted Agent Protocol.
- Secure Payments: Validating agent authenticity during the payment flow to prevent fraud before a transaction impacts the system.
The solution is designed to scale with minimal infrastructure changes for the 175 million merchant locations worldwide that already accept Visa. By leveraging industry-standard web infrastructure, the protocol allows agents to transmit approval for specific shopping missions and pass payment information securely through existing checkout flows.
As AI agents increasingly take over routine purchasing tasks, this partnership positions Visa and Akamai as foundational architects of the trust layer required to make automated commerce a safe reality.
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