Alchemy's AI-driven identity and payment service gains access to Visa network

Blockchain infrastructure firm Alchemy said AI agents with its AgentCard now have access to the Visa (V) network with complete identity and payment capabilities, enabling them to make online purchases on behalf of consumers.

The integration allows AgentCard, a virtual ID and spending card for AI agents, to access Visa Intelligent Commerce to book a vacation, order groceries or renew a subscription, for example, without the consumer ever touching a checkout screen.

Agent-native payment protocols are in early adoption with firms like Stripe, Visa and Mastercard (MA) driving hard into this new area, known as agentic commerce. AgentCard works with agents built on models from any provider, including OpenAI or Anthropic.

“Every major computing shift has produced a new kind of economic actor,” Nikil Viswanathan, co-founder and CEO of Alchemy, said in a statement. “The internet created online businesses. Mobile created the app economy. AI agents are next, and they need to be able to access the global economy, and AgentCard is how that starts.”

By connecting to the Visa system, AI agents will be able to transact using Visa-issued tokens, preserving rewards, credit lines and card benefits without creating new accounts or credentials, according to the statement. AgentCard's routing layer selects the best available payment mechanism for each transaction and falls back to single-use tokens where agent-native protocols are not supported.

Each agent provisioned through AgentCard receives a dedicated email address at agentcard.email and a new phone number, completing the identity layer required for agents to sign up for services, receive verifications, and operate with the same credentials as a human.