Mastercard is moving quickly with this move, AI-powered small payments + on-chain authorization, with Polygon serving as a testing ground. Coinbase, Stripe, and Google are all competing in this space, it seems that AI spending is really becoming an infrastructure.

Mastercard launches a payment protocol called Agent Pay for AI, enabling AI agents to make small payments according to instructions, with authorizations recorded on the blockchain to ensure execution. Initially, permission information is stored on Polygon, an Ethereum-based platform, with participants including Adyen, Coinbase, and Cloudflare. At the same time, Coinbase, Stripe, and Google also introduced their own AI payment standards, paving the way for future AI payments.