For years, predictions about the future of commerce have often ended with the same conclusion: credit cards will eventually disappear, replaced by digital wallets, cryptocurrencies, or "buy now, pay later" services. More recently, artificial intelligence has been portrayed as the next game-changer; AI systems are expected to handle everything from product discovery to purchase completion.

New initiatives

If an AI assistant can compare prices, find the best deals, and complete purchases for you, what role is left for the traditional payment network? Visa believes the answer is simple: the network has a vital role to play.

At the Visa Payments Forum 2026 this week, the company unveiled a suite of new initiatives in AI, tokenization, and stablecoins, designed to ensure Visa cards remain the preferred payment method as commerce is transformed by AI.

In fact, the company is betting that the AI-powered shopping boom may actually strengthen the role of credit cards, rather than weaken it.

AI's limitations in spending:

While AI helps people shop, it doesn't "spend" much money yet. The idea of ​​AI agents managing purchases for consumers has generated considerable excitement in the tech sector. However, Visa points out a significant gap between consumers using AI to research products and actually allowing it to spend money.

“I was in a Visa office abroad a few months ago, and I asked everyone, ‘Have you used AI for shopping?’ Everyone went up. Then I asked, ‘Have you used AI to complete the purchase?’ No one went up. And that was a room full of payment experts,” Jack Forrestal, Visa’s chief product and strategy officer, told Fast Company.

Shoppers’ lack of trust in AI to manage their money.

Forrestal added, “We’ve been very focused on the concept of agent commerce, or AI-powered commerce, for over a year. We assumed that it would eventually help agents not only with product research but also with payment and beyond.” However, the problem isn’t that AI can’t help people shop, but that consumers aren’t yet convinced they should trust it to manage their money. So, the real obstacle is trust.

Technology designed for the “smart” age.

Therefore, the company isn’t aiming to replace card transactions with AI-powered ones, but rather to develop technology designed to make AI-powered purchases as secure and protected as traditional card transactions.

Forrestal said, “I think consumers will want to feel in control of the process and that they are protected.”

Consumers already know that if something goes wrong with a purchase, they can contact their card issuer and payment network. Visa believes this protection becomes even more important when automated software processes transactions.