Cloudflare taps Mastercard, Visa, and AMEX to build rail for AI agent commerce

Cloudflare on Tuesday announced that it has partnered with the world’s largest payments firms, including Visa and Mastercard, to enable agentic commerce. The company stated that the industry-wide initiative utilizes the Web Bot Auth protocol, enabling AI agents to shop at millions of merchants worldwide.

The leading connectivity cloud company previously partnered with Visa to develop and introduce the Trusted Agent Protocol. The new protocol enables payment platforms to integrate Web Bot Auth, allowing merchants to securely and transparently engage with the next generation of AI shopping agents.

Cloudflare’s protocol allows merchants to engage with AI shopping agents

Visa said it’s incorporating the new AI protocols into its agentic payment platform, Visa Intelligence Commerce.

As Cryptopolitan previously reported, Cloudflare and Coinbase unveiled a new x402 protocol in July to enable digital agents and AI systems to make real-time payments using a shared format. Forestell, Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Visa, stated that a new era of commerce is emerging as AI agents begin to transact on behalf of consumers, which requires trust, transparency, security, and industry collaboration.

Cloudflare also collaborated with Mastercard and American Express to integrate Web Bot Auth into both payment networks. Mastercard said it’s integrating the protocol into Mastercard Agent Pay to enable merchants to identify trusted agents and deliver secure , personalized agentic commerce capabilities easily.

Jorn Lambert, Chief Product Officer at Mastercard, acknowledged that the collaboration with Cloudflare simplifies agent verification for merchants and ensures a unified approach to agentic commerce that is scalable, secure, and widely adopted.

American Express maintained that it will also incorporate Web Bot Auth for agentic commerce initiatives. Cloudflare added that AI agents built with its Agents SDK will soon be able to use the Trusted Agent Protocol to shop autonomously at millions of merchants globally.

EVP & head of global innovation at American Express, Luke Gebb, said the firm plans to utilize Cloudflare’s Web Bot Auth to help merchants identify trusted agents and deliver a secure agentic commerce experience. 

Web Bot Auth helps merchants determine intent of agent traffic

Cloudflare revealed that Web Bot Auth allows bots and agents to authenticate themselves for use in agentic commerce. The firm added that the use of bots in the Trusted Agent Protocol helps merchants determine the identity and intent of agent traffic.

The Trusted Agent Protocol also enables merchants to securely accept any payment method from an agent, including credit, debit, cryptocurrency, and other methods. According to Cloudflare, Web Bot Auth creates an authentication layer through compatibility and interoperability with all major agent-based frameworks, empowering merchants and developers to deploy agentic commerce at Internet scale safely.

Stephanie Cohen, Chief Strategy Officer at Cloudflare, argued that the future of commerce is agentic, and the firm is building the trusted foundation for it. She also argued that the company’s global network positions it to enable trust protocols that allow AI agents to transact safely and unlock the next era of digital commerce.

Cloudflare said Web Bot Auth will help payment companies understand customers’ intent to gather product details or purchase an item or service.

Web Bot Auth will also help payment firms maintain personal relationships with customers. Cloudflare acknowledged that the initiative will help merchants determine if a customer has an existing account or shopping history, even if an agent is initiating a purchase on the customer’s behalf. Web Bot Auth will also help merchants process payments from agents using various payment methods, including crypto, credit, debit, and others, to complete a purchase.

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