Cloudflare has teamed up with Visa, Mastercard, and American Express to develop a new authentication layer for AI-driven “agentic commerce.”
The initiative aims to let autonomous AI agents safely shop and pay online while blocking fraudulent bots.

The collaboration uses Web Bot Auth, Cloudflare’s protocol that verifies the identity of AI bots and agents. Visa is co-developing a Trusted Agent Protocol that integrates Web Bot Auth into Visa Intelligent Commerce.
Mastercard will add it to Agent Pay, while Amex will use the system in its agentic commerce program.

According to Cloudflare, the new layer ensures that merchants can verify trusted agents, accept various payment methods—including crypto—and prevent malicious automation.

“The future of commerce is agentic,” said Stephanie Cohen, Cloudflare’s Chief Strategy Officer. “We’re building a secure foundation so innovation and trust go hand in hand.”

Payment leaders praised the move for balancing security and user experience as AI shopping becomes mainstream.

The effort also includes input from Adyen, Checkout.com, Circle, Fiserv, Microsoft, Shopify, and Worldpay, all contributing to open protocols designed to standardize AI-to-merchant payments.