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ZDNET's key takeaways
- Visa and Akami aim to secure agentic transactions.
- It's another layer of protection for AI-led shopping.
- AI shopping experiences create new security risks.
If you've been holiday shopping online, you may have noticed that this year, you have the option to use AI like a shopping assistant. This is just one step toward the ultimate goal of autonomous, agentic AI transactions — which, while convenient, open up a whole new set of vulnerabilities.
Also: Should you trust AI agents with your holiday shopping? Here's what experts want you to know
Visa and cybersecurity company Akamai Technologies are collaborating to address a significant pain point in agentic commerce: verifying whether the bot conducting the transaction was sent by a human or is a malicious actor. The partnership, announced Wednesday, utilizes Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol in conjunction with Akamai Technologies' cybersecurity protections to create safer agent-based commerce experiences with better fraud controls.
Transforming AI agents from novelties into trusted actors
“By combining Visa Trusted Agent Protocol with Akamai's deep user recognition and threat intelligence, we're working to solve the dual-identity challenge that's crucial to AI commerce,” said Patrick Sullivan, chief technology officer of security strategy at Akamai Technologies. “We prove both who the agent is and, critically, who it represents. This is what transforms AI agents from novelties into trusted economic actors.”
Many credit card companies have begun laying the groundwork for agent-based transactions by implementing new protocols, frameworks, and measures designed to improve security for individual users and enterprises. In May, Visa launched Intelligent Commerce, which provides payment support to developers creating agentic AI shopping experiences. It also offers AI-ready credit cards that replace card details with tokenized digital credentials, as well as AI payments, which enable AI agents to make transactions using guidelines set by the user. Google's Agent Payments Protocol, launched in September, aims to create similar protections for those wary of AI-enabled transactions.
Also: How to shop with AI: 6 ways I find deals, price track, and let agents buy for me
As the announcement explains, merchants must now decipher whether a bot is trying to place a transaction that actually belongs to a human. This is especially important as Akamai's 2025 Digital Fraud and Abuse Report found that AI-powered bot traffic has surged 300% over the past year.
To solve for this, Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol's agent authentication framework and Akamai's edge-based behavioral intelligence and user recognition will work in conjunction and verify the legitimacy of the agent activity. They will also work in concert to link the agent to each user, with the Trusted Agent Protocol passing information from user to agent, and then Akamai will preserve that identity.
Also: The coming AI agent crisis: Why Okta's new security standard is a must-have for your business
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the Trusted Agent Protocol can ensure that the payment reaches the merchant in the way the buyer has requested, while Akamai can provide end-to-end protection. The entire Trusted Agent Protocol is meant to be deployed with “minimal infrastructure and user experience (UX) changes,” enabling its 175 million Visa accepting merchant locations to make the transition over to agentic commerce as seamlessly as possible, according to Visa.
