Visa’s plastic companions are currently picking our pants: AI agents are planning to go shopping with your credit card. Credit: ViewFinder ShutterStock
Time of living. Visa announces that she wants to provide her artificial intelligence agents with keys to her wallet, and she can literally buy things herself. With a movement of dropping your chin that sounds like something from something Black mirrorcredit card Colossus says that they are loosening the robot with your money. Yes, really. Find out what they are doing and whether you have a choice.
The financial giant dropped a bomb this week and was revealed to be secretly cooking a sci-fi style scheme called “Visa Intelligent Commerce.” Personal shoppers with the new AI will not recommend handbags or compare hotel prices. By itself. With your card…
“Now people will be seeing, selecting, purchasing and managing AI agents on their behalf,” Jack Forshell, Visa’s Chief Product and Strategy Officer, boasted in a press release. “Visa sets new standards for a new era of commercial transactions.” Translation: Siri is about to start spending your money.
From taps to traps? Visa holds the reins of spending
For six months, Visa has worked quietly behind the scenes alongside Tech’s most powerful players, including Openai, Microsoft, Humanitarian, Confusing, Mistral, Samsung and even IBM. They are also partnering with online payment giant Stripe.
The final goal? Autonomous agents who can buy weekly shops, book holidays, and navigate birthday jumpers for aunt’s shimmy – all without lifting their fingers.
Forget your credit card number. These future AI-Reaid cards use “tokenized digital credentials.” This seems safer than old plastic and is impossible to memorize. handy.
Trust me, I’m a robot… There are details about your bank
Visa claims you are under control. of seeds. “Only consumers can instruct agents to activate payment eligibility,” reassures Visa.
These AI agents have access to your spending history. This is the frequency of purchases you purchase, when you purchase them, and after midnight. According to AI, AI can recommend products and encourage you to purchase specific ones based on what’s best for you. Our customers all over the world are EC.
“Visa has the ability to agree to share a stream of transaction history with us,” he told Dmitry Shevelenko, Chief Business Officer of Perplexity. Associated Press.
“When generating recommendations, let’s say you’re asking, ‘What’s the best laptop?’ -We will know the other transactions you have made and the preferences that were revealed from them. ”
Revealed preference? Sounds like Minority Report meet moneysupermarket.
MasterCard will take part in the Robo Shopper Arms Race
Visas are not the only part of this technomadness. Just a day ago, MasterCard launched its own AI assistant, Agent Pay, featuring some of the same collaborators from Openai, IBM and Microsoft.
These bots are said to “recommended and trade” like personal assistants who never sleep and never forget how many times they purchased the clock.
But here’s a rub. Today’s AI agents have little control over Tesco shops without the need for babysitters. Openai’s much-dead “operator” assistants are painfully slow and often stopped, requiring humans to enter their passwords, approve purchases, and hold a phorical hand.
Card War has become Skynet – and Visa’s All-In
Visa argues that by plugging payment networks into these AI brains, it solves what tech companies couldn’t do, a frictionless, completely autonomous checkout. There is no longer a “Confirm Purchase” click. Just tell the AI agent and POOF. The purchase will be made. Whether you like it or not.
“Payment issues are not something that AI platforms can solve on their own,” admitted Forestell. “So we started working with them.” So should we cheer or panic?
Conclusion: Is this genius or a financial suicide?
If it all sounds a bit dangerous, then that’s because. Pineapple pizza is a good idea, and you are asked to pass your bank account to an error-prone algorithm that you think can’t tell the difference between “buying” and “bye-bye savings.”
On the other hand, we have promised a futuristic world of easy spending. The other? A dystopia where robots are scattered across spa candles and samurai swords as they searched for “stress relief” last week.
Visa’s Robo-Shopper Revolution is coming, and whether it’s a godsend or a gold-plated nightmare, we still have so much to get. How do they get this past British and EU privacy law?
I’ll do it you Do you trust a robot with your credit card? Please let us know in the comments.
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