September 23, 2026
Visa, Mastercard and Ant Aligned on AI Agent Identity
The Know Your Agent standard unites three competing networks, but with no published spec. Almost half of buyers still block purchases made on AI recommendations.
Visa, Mastercard and Ant International signed, in São Paulo, a common identity standard for AI agents that buy on someone's behalf. It is called Know Your Agent, KYA.
Three networks that compete for the same slice of the market agreed to align their own protocols: Visa Trusted Agent Protocol, Mastercard Verifiable Intent and Ant Agentic Mobile Protocol. According to Ant International's CIO, Jiang-Ming Yang, an agent already registered with Ant doesn't need to register again with Visa or Mastercard. That cuts duplicate onboarding across competing networks, something each one normally solves alone before talking to the others. McKinsey projects 3 to 5 trillion dollars in agent-orchestrated commerce by 2030, and this kind of integration friction was part of what held that number back.
But the announcement came with no technical specification, governance structure or timeline, according to Forkast itself. For anyone deciding where AI enters a payment product, this matters more than it seems. It is an agreement between executives, with no published specification an engineering team can implement. For now, we wait.
Product.ai's April survey of 1,463 American shoppers shows 14% trusting an AI recommendation without checking again, and 42% refusing to buy on an AI referral above 25 dollars without confirming elsewhere. Almost half the market still blocks AI at a low price point, and no identity protocol changes that number on its own.
Consumer trust is built transaction by transaction. Are you ready to let an agent do your shopping?
Sources: Forkast · PYMNTS · Product.ai