Mastercard CEO: Agent Pay and stablecoin deal reshape commerce

Miebach frames the new protocols as a response to the rise of AI agents in commerce. Today, consumers search and buy manually; with agentic commerce, an LLM could handle the entire checkout process. This introduces a new entity, the agent, which needs to be verified and trusted, a challenge Mastercard addresses with Agent Pay. The service also opens new revenue streams, as tokenization is a paid service.

The AP4M protocol extends this to B2B, where companies buy digital resources like APIs or compute power. Instead of invoices, machines could pay in small, real-time increments, which Miebach argues would dramatically improve working capital efficiency. This could shift payment rails away from traditional card networks, possibly using stablecoins, but Mastercard aims to remain the trusted, interoperable layer on top.

Miebach notes that while overall GDP might not rise from these changes, there could be a transaction growth multiplier as AI agents split purchases across multiple merchants. He also highlights the complexity ahead, with multiple chains and stablecoins, and positions Mastercard's acquisition of BVNK as a way to connect this fragmented world, mirroring its role in traditional card payments.