Visa sees cards and stablecoins working together in the AI economy

Visa has outlined how stablecoins and traditional card networks can work together in AI-driven commerce, arguing that low-cost blockchain payments will be critical as software agents begin handling machine-to-machine transactions.

According to a joint research report released on Wednesday by Visa and blockchain analytics firm Artemis, the rise of agentic commerce will create two distinct payment needs, with existing card networks continuing to support consumer purchases while stablecoins become more practical for frequent low-value payments between software systems.

The report, titled Agentic Payments from the Ground Up, examines how AI agents could independently initiate and complete transactions as they carry out tasks on behalf of users or other software.

Visa and Artemis divided the emerging market into macro-commerce and micro-commerce. Macro-commerce covers consumer-sized purchases, such as booking travel or managing subscriptions, where AI agents act on behalf of people. Micro-commerce involves repeated sub-dollar transactions between software services, including API requests and payments for computing resources.

Stablecoins fit machine-to-machine payments

The report said traditional payment rails remain well suited for larger consumer purchases, but fixed processing costs make very small payments uneconomical. It added that newer blockchain networks have reduced settlement costs to fractions of a cent, making stablecoins a more efficient option for machine-native micropayments.

Rather than replacing existing payment systems, Visa said both technologies are expected to operate together.

“In all likelihood, this won’t come down to a choice between cards and stablecoins. Both will have a place,” the company said. Visa added that cards are suited to purchases within today’s merchant networks, while stablecoins better match machine-native micropayments.

The report said future agentic commerce is likely to combine both payment methods within a single workflow. Under that model, AI agents could use card networks for consumer-facing purchases before relying on stablecoins to settle repeated low-value transactions between software services.

Visa also said the distinction between card-based and crypto-native payment systems is becoming less clear. The report noted that card-focused initiatives such as the Trusted Agent Protocol, Agent Payments Protocol and Visa Intelligent Commerce are adding stablecoin support, while crypto-native projects are incorporating trust and verification features commonly associated with traditional payment infrastructure.

The company said its long-term approach is to combine card-based authorization and security with blockchain-based settlement while allowing both systems to interoperate.

Legal and trust questions remain

Despite the payment advances, Visa said trust remains one of the biggest obstacles to agentic commerce because existing legal and payment systems assume that a human is making purchasing decisions.

The report said current laws do not clearly define responsibility when AI agents complete transactions independently, while chargeback rules and dispute processes were built for human-paced commerce rather than automated systems capable of completing thousands of transactions every hour.

The latest findings build on Visa’s recent work around AI-powered commerce and stablecoins. Earlier this year, the company introduced Visa Intelligent Commerce, an Agentic Directory and Agent Score tools designed to support trusted AI-driven payments. It also announced a partnership with OpenAI to enable secure Visa payments inside agentic commerce experiences.

Stablecoins have become another focus of the company’s payment strategy. In July, Visa joined Mastercard, Coinbase, and more than 140 businesses to launch the Open Standard consortium, which plans to issue the Open USD stablecoin for business payments and settlements. Visa has also continued expanding stablecoin settlement across its network, saying earlier this year that its annualized settlement run rate had reached about $7 billion and that more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs were live or under development.

The company has also continued linking digital assets with traditional payments. Earlier this week, Visa partnered with HashKey Exchange and Shanghai Commercial Bank to launch a co-branded credit card in Hong Kong that lets eligible users convert card rewards into vouchers redeemable for cryptocurrency purchases or trading fees on the licensed exchange.