Cloudflare is collaborating with leading payment networks Visa, Mastercard, and American Express to build a secure and trusted foundation for the emerging economy where artificial intelligence agents conduct transactions on behalf of humans.
The initiative aims to address the critical challenge of distinguishing legitimate AI agents from malicious bots, ensuring secure digital commerce for a global audience. The partnership focuses on creating an authentication layer for these automated transactions.
Stephanie Cohen, Cloudflare’s Chief Strategy Officer, stated that the “future of commerce is agent” and Cloudflare is “building the foundation of trust for it.” She added that the collaboration seeks to resolve challenges like the need for robust systems to differentiate trusted AI from fraudulent activity.
The partnership enables developers, merchants, and payment companies to innovate, ensuring that security is “inherent by design,” Cohen noted.
A core component of this effort is the “Trusted Agent Protocol,” co-developed by Cloudflare and Visa. This protocol incorporates Cloudflare’s Web Bot Auth standard.
The standard allows payment networks to authenticate legitimate AI bots. This helps merchants verify the identity and intentions of these agents, enabling secure processing of payments, including credit cards, debit cards, and cryptocurrencies.
Mastercard plans to integrate Web Bot Auth into its Mastercard Agent Pay platform. American Express will utilize it within its agent commerce program to offer personalized and secure experiences.
Jack Forestell, Visa’s Chief Product and Strategy Officer, highlighted that this “new era of commerce” demands trust, transparency, and security. He said merchants should not “have to choose between blocking bots and serving real customers.”
Jorn Lambert, Mastercard’s Chief Product Officer, emphasized that agents could enable a “much more fluid shopping experience.” This, however, is only possible if the agents are trustworthy and merchants have the necessary tools, he added.
Agent commerce envisions AI systems acting as personal shoppers, handling tasks ranging from product searches and price negotiations to managing subscriptions.
Cloudflare’s broader commitment includes contributing to open protocols such as the Agent Payments Protocol. It has also launched the Cloudflare NET Dollar, a stablecoin backed by U.S. dollars.
The company also established the x402 Foundation in partnership with Coinbase to standardize payment protocols for agents. Additional companies like Adyen, Checkout.com, Circle, Fiserv, Microsoft, Nuvei, Shopify, Webflow, and Worldpay have expressed support and will collaborate on the framework’s evolution.
Experts suggest that the convergence of AI and cryptocurrencies could enable billions of autonomous agents to conduct instant, secure machine-to-machine payments.
Cloudflare, with its global network that blocks billions of daily threats, is positioned as a key player in scaling these trust protocols across the internet. The company stated this initiative will accelerate agent commerce adoption and unlock the next era of digital commerce for consumers and sellers.