Visa expands AI and stablecoin tools for programmable commerce
Expansion of stablecoin settlement programmes and tokenised deposit technology highlights Visa’s growing focus on programmable and blockchain-enabled payments.
Visa has announced new AI, stablecoin and tokenisation capabilities aimed at supporting agentic and programmable commerce.
The updates were presented at the Visa Payments Forum 2026 and focus on transactions initiated or supported by AI agents, as well as blockchain-based settlement and value transfer. Visa said the tools are intended to add trust, security and control as commerce becomes more automated.
The company introduced Agent Score, which allows merchants to assess whether their websites are ready for AI agents to navigate and complete tasks. It also announced an Agentic Directory of verified agents and merchants, intended to help participants identify legitimate actors in agentic commerce.
Visa also announced a strategic partnership with OpenAI that would allow AI agents to initiate Visa payments within defined user permissions. OpenAI will provide the conversational interface, while Visa will provide the underlying payment infrastructure.
The company introduced a Large Transaction Model trained on billions of transactions to improve fraud detection, authorisation performance and reduce false declines. It also announced token enhancements designed to add more transaction context, identity, permissions and behavioural signals to digital payment credentials.
On the settlement side, Visa said it is developing technology that would allow banks to issue tokenised deposits and is expanding stablecoin settlement pilots across multiple regions, blockchains and currencies. The company said it has moved billions of dollars in stablecoins across VisaNet, with an annualised run rate of about $7 billion as of March 2026. More than 160 stablecoin-linked card programmes are live or in development globally, according to Visa.
Why does it matter?
Visa’s announcements show how major payment networks are preparing for AI agents to initiate transactions and for stablecoins and tokenised deposits to play a larger role in settlement. The policy relevance lies in trust infrastructure: verifying agents and merchants, defining user permissions, managing fraud risk, strengthening digital identity signals and keeping programmable payment systems within regulated financial channels.
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