PURCHASE, N.Y.—Mastercard has launched a new payment platform designed for the emerging world of autonomous AI agents, saying the technology will enable machines to buy and sell services, exchange data and complete transactions without human intervention.
The company introduced Agent Pay for Machines (AP4M), a service that allows AI agents and automated systems to conduct high-frequency transactions—including microtransactions worth fractions of a cent—across Mastercard’s global payments network. Mastercard said the platform is designed to support a future in which AI-powered software can independently purchase services, manage budgets and execute complex chains of transactions.
“Agent Pay for Machines will create the conditions for a superbloom of AI business models,” Mastercard Chief Product Officer Jorn Lambert said in announcing the service.
He said machine-to-machine payments could enable commerce at scales characterized by very high transaction volumes, extremely small payment values and near-instant execution.
According to Mastercard, the platform provides credentialing, permissions controls, transaction processing and settlement capabilities that allow organizations to define spending limits and authorization rules while enabling automated payments across cards, bank accounts and stablecoins. Potential use cases include AI agents launching online businesses, purchasing digital services and managing logistics operations that automatically pay suppliers, warehouses and data providers.
Mastercard said it is working with a broad group of payments, technology and digital-asset companies—including Adyen, Stripe, Coinbase, Cloudflare, Polygon, Solana Foundation and Santander-owned Getnet—to help establish standards and accelerate adoption of machine-driven commerce. The company said AP4M builds on its Agent Pay initiative launched in 2025 and is intended to provide the infrastructure needed as AI agents increasingly transact on behalf of businesses and consumers.