Visa announced on Wednesday that it has partnered with a group of leading AI chatbot developers to connect their systems to Visa’'s payment network.
The goal is to get AI bots to do personal budgeting work. Users will be able to set preferences and spending limits, after which AI representatives will search for products and complete their purchases.
Partner companies include US firms Anthropic, Microsoft, OpenAI and Perplexity, and French Mistral. Visa is also working on the initiative with IBM, online payment company Stripe and phone maker Samsung.
Pilot projects began on Wednesday ahead of the more widespread use expected next year.
The San Francisco payment processing company believes what now appears to be a futuristic concept could soon become a viable alternative to our most mundane shopping tasks.
He spent the last six months working with AI developers to overcome technical barriers, an important step before introducing the product to consumers.
For emerging AI companies, Visa’'s support can also increase their chances of competing with tech giants Amazon and Google, which dominate digital commerce and develop their own AI intermediaries.
Jack Forestell, chief product and strategy officer at Visa’, said in an interview with “ that we think this could be really important. “ has transformed as much as the advent of e-commerce.”
Limitations of agency AI
The tech industry is already showing what the so-called “ajan” can do with artificial intelligence, but many uses are still available in an experimental form and are not yet publicly available.
Many of these are still redesigned versions of large language models - the prolific artificial intelligence technology behind chatbots that can write emails, summarize documents, or help people code. Because they're trained with huge amounts of data, they can browse the internet and come up with recommendations for things to buy, but they have a harder time going beyond that.
Forestell, “, the first examples of agency-based trading, are starting to do a really good job in the shopping and discovery dimension of the problem, but they are having huge problems with payments, ” said. “You get to a point where agents literally reverse the subject and say ‘OK, go buy’.”
Visa sees itself as having a key role in providing AI representatives with easier and more reliable access to the cash they need for their purchases.
The payment problem is not something that artificial intelligence platforms can solve on their own, Forestell said in “. “That's why we started working with them.”
Category: Digital payments
The new artificial intelligence initiative comes nearly a year after Visa’ announced major changes to how credit and debit cards will function in the U.S. ’; which makes physical cards and 16-digit numbers increasingly insignificant.
Many consumers are already getting used to digital payment systems such as Apple Pay, which turns their phones into credit cards. A similar process for examining someone's digital credentials will empower AI representatives to work on behalf of the customer; Forestell says it needs to reassure buyers, banks and sellers that transactions are legitimate and that Visa’ will resolve disputes.
Forestell said this doesn't mean AI representatives will take over the entire shopping experience, but it could be useful for errands that bore some people (such as groceries, home decor products, and even Christmas lists) or are too complex, such as travel reservations.
Forestell said that in such cases, some people may want a representative of “, who simply provides power and automatically goes and does the work for us.
Forestell said other shopping experiences, such as luxury items, are a form of entertainment, and many customers still want to immerse themselves in choices and comparisons. In this case, he predicts that artificial intelligence agents will still offer help but remain in the background.
Limits of spending
What about credit card debt? According to the New York Federal Reserve, credit card balances of American consumers reached $1.21 trillion (€1.1 trillion) at the end of last year.
Forestell says consumers will offer AI representatives clear spending limits and conditions to reassure them that control is still in human hands. At first, AI representatives are likely to come back to buyers to make sure they don't have problems with a specific air ticket. Over time, these agencies may have more autonomy when it comes to “ spending up to $1,500 on any airline to get me from point A to point B, ” said.
One of the things that attracted some AI developers to the Visa partnership is that, with the customer's permission, an AI representative can leverage a lot of data on past credit card purchases.
Dmitry Shevelenko, chief operating officer of Perplexity’, said “Visa has the ability to allow a user to share their transaction history flows with us.
“When we create a suggestion, let's say ‘Which are the best laptops? — We can what other transactions you make and therefore the preferences that arise.”
Shevelenko explained that the Perplexity’nin chatbot can already book hotels and make other purchases, but it is still in the early stages of artificial intelligence trading.
The San Francisco-based startup, along with ChatGPT producer OpenAI, told the federal court that it would consider buying Google’'s web browser Chrome’ if the U.S. ’ forced the tech giant to break up in an ongoing antitrust lawsuit.
