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Visa and Mastercard are racing to develop payments tools that will let consumers commission digital agents to buy goods and services.

With “agentic” artificial intelligence enabling consumers to program digital agents to shop for desired goods and services, based on specified criteria, Visa and Mastercard are eager to play a role in the purchasing.

Executives from the networks have doubled down on the card networks’ announcements in April that they were getting into the market. The automated shopping tool would presumably result in more sales for merchants, and thereby generate more fees for credit card issuers and networks that process transactions every time a card is swiped.

In April, online behemoth Amazon disclosed it was testing a new ‘Buy for Me’ feature in its app that would allow for automated purchasing. And in May, PayPal announced it would process payments for automated shopping developed by the AI engine company Perplexity. And retail juggernaut Walmart has also been studying the phenomenon to understand how shoppers perceive it.

Mastercard, the No. 2 U.S. network, said in an April 29 press release that it would lean on its tokenization know-how–the same technology that allows for recurring bill payments–to collaborate with tech titan Microsoft to build the new form of commerce. It planned to team with merchant service providers Checkout.com and PayPal Holdings’ Braintree to upgrade merchant services. The network also said it would partner with IBM to pursue business-to-business use cases.

“The program will require trusted AI agents to be registered and verified, after which they will be able to make secure payments on behalf of their users,” the Mastercard release said. To give consumers more comfort, it added: “Consumers will have complete control over what the agent is allowed to purchase on their behalf, ensuring that the payments they make are securely authorized and identified.”

A day later, larger network rival Visa said it was working with some of the same partners, as well as digital payments upstart Stripe to spearhead agentic shopping.

“Millions of people will soon rely on AI to find the perfect sweater, research a new vacation spot or fulfill their grocery list,” Visa said in the release, suggesting it will make it “possible to transact in an AI-driven world in a way that is secure and trusted.”

The agentic approach is designed to remove “friction,” Suh said, referring to it also as “intelligent commerce.” Friction refers to the digital snags that consumers encounter online in trying to make a purchase, and sometimes keep that would-be buyer from completing a transaction.

Mastercard Chief Services Officer Craig Vosburg called it “the next step in the evolution of commerce,” during an RBC investor conference Tuesday.

He explained how technology advances have changed the shopping experience: Consumers used to head to a store to buy something, and then they began shopping on the internet, and today they browse on their phones throughout the day. Now, a consumer will send a bot to do the buying “while you go do more interesting things with your life, based on some instructions you’ve given that agent.”

Overall, the technology also helps companies customize commerce. “We look at how to use AI to make commerce more personal,” Vosburg said.

But erecting the technological guardrails that will engender such trust is still a work in progress. The networks say they’re still crafting parameters to ensure they can authenticate users on the backend of the technology; give consumers controls on spending; and address any problematic payments by bots run amok. The networks haven’t specified how and when consumers will approve payments for purchases.

Tokenization will play a role in authentication, fraud prevention and data collection for any dispute resolution, Vosburg said.

Just as important are protections to keep fraudsters from manipulating the new technology to their benefit, the networks have acknowledged.