Visa links ChatGPT to card network for AI-powered shopping payments

Visa is preparing for a future in which shoppers allow artificial intelligence agents to handle routine purchases such as groceries, airline tickets and diapers. The payments company said Wednesday that its network has been built into ChatGPT, giving the chatbot the ability to shop and finish transactions for users.

The arrangement would let AI agents move beyond product suggestions and carry out purchases at potentially any business that takes Visa. Earlier efforts by the card network to support this kind of buying were limited to one retailer or to a small group of participating merchants.

OpenAI has already tried to bring commerce into ChatGPT. Late last year, it introduced Instant Checkout, a feature that let the chatbot search the internet for a requested product in a way similar to a digital shopping assistant. That service struggled with errors and did not gain broad merchant support because of the fee OpenAI charged. Instant Checkout was shut down in March.

Visa says the new partnership takes a different approach. Users will be able to connect their Visa cards to ChatGPT, while merchants should find it easier to accept purchases started by AI agents.

OpenAI will supply the systems that allow agents to communicate, weigh options and begin purchases inside ChatGPT. Visa, described as the largest payments network outside China, will provide the authorisation and fraud controls needed to support those transactions widely.

"As AI agents become active participants in the economy, Visa's focus is to ensure transactions are trusted, secure and seamless," said Jack Forestell, Visa's chief product and strategy officer.

At a Visa event in San Francisco on Wednesday, Forestell outlined how the system could work. A customer might ask ChatGPT to find wireless headphones costing less than US$150, and the chatbot could identify a suitable pair and buy it for that person.

"I think we're generally at a place where most people are very comfortable with the shopping aspects of it and have discovered this as a superior discovery experience," Forestell said in an interview. He said the bigger challenge is moving from AI recommendations to AI purchases, which "just requires a whole different level of trust".

"But that all comes from the underlying infrastructure, the process, the security that we build into it and the rules," he said.

Visa and OpenAI did not reveal the financial terms of their agreement. They also gave no specifics on what fees, if any, merchants or customers may face. Instant Checkout had charged merchants four per cent of the value of each transaction, a cost merchants considered too high.

Letting software agents buy goods for consumers creates risks for banks and retailers. A shopper could spend too much, the agent could select the wrong product, or the customer could later say the transaction was unauthorised. Banks have also worried about fraud disputes when an AI agent uses a customer's debit or credit card.

Visa says it plans to include safeguards such as spending caps, required approvals and lists of approved merchants to reduce fraud and protect consumers.

Forestell said disputes will be assessed under the same basic standards Visa applies to other purchases: whether the consumer intended to buy and whether the merchant handled the transaction properly. A different problem could arise, he said, if both sides acted correctly but an issue occurred between them.

"And that's why we're modifying our whole token framework and data-capture process with Visa Intelligent Commerce to make sure that problem doesn't happen," Forestell said.

Retailers have already rolled out AI shopping assistants that suggest products and tailor the buying experience. Early examples included Amazon's Alexa, but Alexa could only make purchases on Amazon. OpenAI's Instant Checkout was also restricted to selected merchants.

Mastercard, Visa's main rival, has been adding AI-shopping tools to its own payment network on a smaller scale. Mastercard said AI agents will be able to obtain services for businesses. In one example, a coffee shop preparing a launch could authorise an agent to buy services from web and advertising providers to build its campaign.

Forestell said consumers will need time before they are fully comfortable allowing AI agents to shop for them. Visa expects most early transactions to keep people involved, with agents sending notifications asking customers to approve the purchase.

"Now, imagine you do that a thousand times over the course of some period of time," he said. "And then your agent says, 'Do you want me to just not check?'"