Visa, Mastercard aren't worried about AI shopping protocol soup

Visa is working directly with Google on "interoperability" but a range of protocols is getting confusing.

Updated Feb 2, 2026 8:57 AM / Published Jan 30, 2026 1:49 PM 2 min read

A person taps a Visa credit card on a payments terminal. Visa is working on agentic commerce with Google — Image credit: https://unsplash.com/@yocoproduction

Visa has agreed to play nice with Google on developing standards for agentic commerce, when AI agents shop on a user's behalf, as analysts question the risk of protocol “fragmentation.”

Payment service provides and banks released a flurry of protocols for agentic shopping late last year. Visa, OpenAI, Google, PayPal and Mastercard all published frameworks for how AI could process payments of behalf of humans.

In an Q1 earnings call, Visa CEO Ryan McInerney said it was “building interoperability” between its agentic system, including a protocol it released in October, and Google’s new Universal Commerce Protocol, while Mastercard said it welcomed a range of standards.

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Noah Bovenizer

Noah Bovenizer is a reporter with The Stack. He previously covered the transportation sector for Global Data. He has a first class degree in journalism and has also worked as a newsreader for Gaydio.