Today, Mastercard announced an expansion of Agent Pay, its agentic payments program, with new trust and intelligence services that provide greater context for AI-initiated transactions. By bringing together identity, intent, behavioral and fraud insights, the services give financial institutions and merchants a clearer, shared understanding of AI-driven activity – enabling smarter authorization decisions, less unnecessary friction and more seamless experiences for consumers. 

These new services form the intelligence layer of Mastercard's Agent Pay Trust Framework, which brings together identity, intent, controls, execution and intelligence to establish trust across agentic commerce.

The next era of commerce requires more context behind every payment 

Agentic commerce is moving into the mainstream, with one in 10 consumers projected to routinely use agents to make purchases by 2030. As agentic commerce grows, banks and merchants need to understand when an agent is involved, what it has been asked to do and whether the activity is legitimate. At the same time, consumers expect every transaction to be secure, no matter how they choose to pay or which agents they use.

“AI agents will make commerce more intuitive, efficient and personal — but only if people and businesses can trust the systems acting on their behalf,” said Ann Johnson, executive vice president, Security Solutions at Mastercard. “By adding new agentic intelligence and risk insights to each transaction, we are giving people the confidence to say ‘yes,’ however they choose to pay.”

A probability score identifies AI-initiated transactions 

The first service, rolling out for testing in the U.S., is a probability score indicating the likelihood that a transaction was initiated by an AI agent – giving issuers the confidence to approve legitimate agent-led purchases. Over time, Mastercard will strengthen this score with more intelligence related to behavior, merchant risk, transaction patterns, credential risk and consumer propensity, providing an even clearer picture of AI-driven activity across the transaction lifecycle.

A shared intelligence layer provides more context around AI-led purchases 

Beyond the probability score, the new agentic trust and intelligence signals give ecosystem participants a common understanding of what is happening behind a purchase by answering the following questions: 

• Is the activity consistent with expected behavior or patterns?

• Does the agent, merchant, credential or transaction show anything unusual that requires further review?

• Should the transaction be approved or are additional checks needed?

For example, imagine asking a new AI assistant to plan and book your next trip. It finds the best flight, hotel and transportation options, then completes the bookings with a single approval. Although multiple purchases across different merchants may appear unusual on the surface, Mastercard’s insights provide the context banks and merchants need to approve legitimate activity, helping consumers move seamlessly from planning to booking the trip. If something looks risky, the transaction can be flagged for additional review before the consumer completes the purchase.