AI Agents Are Starting to Spend Money Online — And Big Tech Wants the Rails

AI agents are beginning to pay for online services without constant human checkout flows, pushing Visa, Stripe, Google and Coinbase to build payment infrastructure for machine-to-machine commerce.

A new Keyrock report said stablecoin rails could support trillions of dollars in payment volume by the end of the decade, with AI agents emerging as one of the use cases where blockchain settlement may fit better than traditional cards.

AI agents may need to buy API access, data, compute, subscriptions or digital goods in small amounts, repeatedly and automatically. Card rails can handle consumer checkout, but micropayments and agent identity create friction when software is the buyer.

Related: European Banks Unite Behind Euro Stablecoin Push to Challenge Dollar Dominance

Stablecoins Fit Micropayments

Keyrock highlighted that stablecoins offer programmable settlement, low-cost transfers and global reach for agent transactions, with nearly all current agent payments settled in USDC.

Coinbase’s x402 protocol is one example of the crypto-native approach. It uses HTTP 402-style payment flows so an agent can reach a paywalled endpoint, pay in USDC and continue the task without opening a billing account or negotiating a separate contract.

For autonomous commerce, it turns payment into part of the web request. For developers, the payment is machine-readable, and for agents, the transaction can happen in the same interaction as the service request.

Visa launched Agentic Ready in Latin America and the Caribbean on April 29, calling it part of a global program to prepare issuers and payment partners for AI agent-initiated commerce.

Stablecoin rules and AI governance frameworks expected around mid-2026 do not fully answer who is liable when an autonomous agent overspends, buys the wrong service or is tricked into paying a malicious endpoint.

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