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Visa Intelligent Commerce

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Andrei Bosyi edited this page Mar 24, 2026 · 2 revisions

Visa Intelligent Commerce is a new platform and product initiative that enables AI agents to securely browse, shop, and purchase on behalf of consumers, marking a major step toward an era of autonomous, AI-driven commerce experiences.

Visa Intelligent Commerce provides a suite of integrated APIs, tokenized digital credentials, and commercial tools so that AI agents - like chatbots or virtual assistants - can complete transactions on behalf of users within limits set by the consumer. The system is designed to improve security, reduce fraud, and boost the personalization and efficiency of digital shopping experiences for both buyers and merchants.

How It Works

  • Agent onboarding: Agents are onboarded onto the Visa Intelligent Commerce platform in order to access the 4 integrated services.
  • Agent specific tokens: Agents enable users to create accounts and provide users the option to add their Visa cards that can be used by the agent to make purchases on their behalf. This provisioning will include step up verification of the cardholder as well as setting up a Passkey that will be used by the agent to authenticate future instructions.
  • Deliver personalization: Agents may request the user's consent to utilize the user insights from Visa to enhance the personalization of the experience.
  • Manage payment instructions: When an interaction between an agent and a user leads to a recommendation to make one or more purchases, the agent will request whether the user agrees that the agent can make the purchase on the user's behalf.
  • Authentication: The agent requests the user to authenticate the Payment Instruction using their Passkey and provides that instruction to the Visa Intelligent Commerce platform.
  • Retrieve payment credentials: When the agent is ready to purchase goods or services from one or more merchants, the agent requests payment credentials. The Visa Intelligent Commerce platform will validate that these requests match the authenticated user instruction and set network level controls.
  • Make payments: The agent uses the payment credentials received from the Visa Intelligent Commerce platform to complete the purchases at the merchant(s). Initially this payment process will be facilitated using guest checkout, key entry (form fill).
  • Implement transaction controls: When authorization requests are received by VisaNet, controls will be enforce to ensure that the request originates from the intended merchant for the correct amount.
  • Share commerce signals: The agent will share the outcome of the purchase made at the merchant with the Visa Intelligent Commerce platform. These signals, along with the user instructions can be used to resolve any disputes that may arise.

Resources

Integration Approaches

This repository provides two integration approaches for Visa Intelligent Commerce:

  • MCP-Based Integration — Use the Model Context Protocol with StreamableHTTP transport for standardized AI agent integration
  • Direct API Integration — Use direct REST API calls with X-Pay authentication and MLE encryption

Both approaches provide the same VIC capabilities.

Packages

Reusable packages for VIC integration:

  • @visa/token-manager — JWE token generation and management for MCP authentication, automatic token refresh and caching
  • @visa/mcp-client — MCP client for connecting to Visa MCP server with automatic authentication, token refresh, tool discovery and execution
  • @visa/api-client — API clients for VIC and VDP with X-Pay authentication: VicApiClient (VIC APIs with automatic MLE encryption/decryption), VdpApiClient (VDP connectivity testing), VtsApiClient (token provisioning and device binding)

Client Usage Examples

Working examples in the apps/ directory:

  • vic-mcp-examples/ — MCP server connection, individual tool invocation (enroll-card, purchase instructions, payment credentials, transaction confirmations), and multi-tool workflow orchestration
  • vic-api-examples/ — Direct REST API integration with X-Pay authentication and MLE encryption, end-to-end workflows (create/cancel/update instructions, retrieve credentials)
  • vdp-api-examples/ — VDP connectivity testing with X-Pay authentication

Agent Demo

The vic-agent/ directory contains a LangGraphJS-powered AI agent with a Next.js UI that demonstrates VTS card tokenization and Visa Passkey usage:

  • Card tokenization via VTS
  • Device binding with FIDO authentication
  • Step-up verification and Visa Payment Passkey creation
  • Assurance data collection and VIC enrollment
  • Supports both MCP and direct API modes (USE_DIRECT_API flag)

See vic-agent/README.md for setup instructions.

AI Agent Skills

The visa-best-practices skill for Claude Code provides VIC integration guidance, authentication setup, MLE best practices, and workflow details.

Install into your project:

git clone https://github.com/visa/ai.git
cp -r ai/skills/visa-best-practices <your-project>/.claude/skills/

Documentation MCP Server

A dedicated MCP server that provides AI agents with integration guides, code examples, and tool definitions for both MCP and direct API approaches.

Endpoint: https://sandbox.mcp.visa.com/mcp/doc

Learn more: Documentation MCP Server Wiki

Clone this wiki locally