Can your shopping bot be trusted? How Visa will ensure scam-free AI transactions

11 hours ago 6
Visa recognition  cards
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ZDNET's cardinal takeaways

  • Visa and Akami purpose to unafraid agentic transactions. 
  • It's different furniture of extortion for AI-led shopping.
  • AI buying experiences make caller information risks. 

If you've been vacation buying online, you whitethorn person noticed that this year, you person the enactment to usage AI similar a buying assistant. This is conscionable 1 measurement toward the eventual extremity of autonomous, agentic AI transactions -- which, portion convenient, unfastened up a full caller acceptable of vulnerabilities.

Also: Should you spot AI agents with your vacation shopping? Here's what experts privation you to know

Visa and cybersecurity institution Akamai Technologies are collaborating to code a important symptom constituent successful agentic commerce: verifying whether the bot conducting the transaction was sent by a quality oregon is simply a malicious actor. The partnership, announced Wednesday, utilizes Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol successful conjunction with Akamai Technologies' cybersecurity protections to make safer agent-based commerce experiences with amended fraud controls. 

Transforming AI agents from novelties into trusted actors

"By combining Visa Trusted Agent Protocol with Akamai's heavy idiosyncratic designation and menace intelligence, we're moving to lick the dual-identity situation that's important to AI commerce," said Patrick Sullivan, main exertion serviceman of information strategy astatine Akamai Technologies. "We beryllium some who the cause is and, critically, who it represents. This is what transforms AI agents from novelties into trusted economical actors."

Many recognition paper companies person begun laying the groundwork for agent-based transactions by implementing caller protocols, frameworks, and measures designed to amended information for idiosyncratic users and enterprises. In May, Visa launched Intelligent Commerce, which provides outgo enactment to developers creating agentic AI buying experiences. It besides offers AI-ready recognition cards that regenerate paper details with tokenized integer credentials, arsenic good arsenic AI payments, which alteration AI agents to marque transactions utilizing guidelines acceptable by the user. Google's Agent Payments Protocol, launched successful September, aims to make akin protections for those wary of AI-enabled transactions.

Also: How to store with AI: 6 ways I find deals, terms track, and fto agents bargain for me

As the announcement explains, merchants indispensable present decipher whether a bot is trying to spot a transaction that really belongs to a human. This is particularly important arsenic Akamai's 2025 Digital Fraud and Abuse Report recovered that AI-powered bot postulation has surged 300% implicit the past year. 

To lick for this, Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol's cause authentication model and Akamai's edge-based behavioral quality and idiosyncratic designation volition enactment successful conjunction and verify the legitimacy of the cause activity. They volition besides enactment successful performance to nexus the cause to each user, with the Trusted Agent Protocol passing accusation from idiosyncratic to agent, and past Akamai volition sphere that identity. 

Also: The coming AI cause crisis: Why Okta's caller information modular is simply a must-have for your business

Lastly, and possibly astir importantly, the Trusted Agent Protocol tin guarantee that the outgo reaches the merchant successful the mode the purchaser has requested, portion Akamai tin supply end-to-end protection. The full Trusted Agent Protocol is meant to beryllium deployed with "minimal infrastructure and idiosyncratic acquisition (UX) changes," enabling its 175 cardinal Visa accepting merchant locations to marque the modulation implicit to agentic commerce arsenic seamlessly arsenic possible, according to Visa. 

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