The FIDO AllianceThe industry consortium that develops open authentication standards; 250-plus member organisations including Google, Apple, and Microsoft. launched two working groups for agentic commerce on April 28, accepting Google’s Agent Payments Protocol v0.2 (AP2Google's Agent Payments Protocol — a draft open standard defining how AI agents initiate payment flows on a user's behalf.) and Mastercard’s Verifiable IntentMastercard's framework that creates a tamper-resistant cryptographic record of what a consumer authorised an agent to do. framework as founding contributions 1. An Agentic Authentication Technical Working Group — chaired by CVS Health, Google, and OpenAI — will define how AI agents authenticate and act on behalf of users. A separate Payments Technical Working Group, chaired by Mastercard and Visa, will produce specifications for agent-initiated transactions; 60-plus organisations committed at launch. AP2 v0.2 added “Human Not Present” flows, enabling agents to complete transactions without per-task user approval. Mastercard’s Verifiable Intent uses selective-disclosure cryptography to create a tamper-resistant record of what a consumer authorised; Google and Mastercard open-sourced both specifications alongside the announcement 1. Stripe extended Link — its consumer wallet with 250 million users — to AI agents on April 29 2. Agents gain OAuthA widely-used open standard that lets a user grant an app or agent specific, time-limited permissions without sharing credentials.-based access (a standardised permission flow) and request one-time payment credentials per task, with the consumer approving each request.
Google originally published AP2 in September 2025 with 60 partners (2025-w38); FIDO’s acceptance converts it from a bilateral network proposal into a candidate open standard with formal balloting. Stripe’s Link extension builds on the Agentic Commerce Suite (launched December 2025, 2025-w50) and the ACP co-developed with OpenAI (September 2025, 2025-w40). Link now targets personal AI agents as a distribution channel, distinct from the merchant-deployed shopping tools those earlier launches enabled. Visa’s agent-payment testing programme for issuers expanded to 85-plus partners in Asia Pacific and Latin America 4, six weeks after its European launch with Barclays, HSBC UK, and Nationwide (2026-w11). Mastercard’s Q1 2026 earnings disclosed Mastercard Agent Pay is now enabled across nearly all its cards globally 3, a milestone first disclosed in the earnings call, not a prior product announcement.
Stripe disclosed a Google partnership at Sessions 2026 enabling merchant checkout inside Gemini and AI Mode via the Agentic Commerce Suite 5, extending to Wix, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce merchants. Google activated direct shopping inside AI Mode in February 2026 (2026-w07) and Ulta Beauty launched Gemini-powered UCP checkout the week before this issue (2026-w17). Merchants on Wix, BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Stripe-native platforms gain access to Google’s AI shopping surfaces without direct integration work with Google. All three Mastercard-named Agent Pay partners 3 now operate distinct live AI shopping channels. Those channels are Gemini, Copilot Checkout (launched January 2026, 2026-w02), and ChatGPT Shopping Research (launched November 2025, 2025-w48).
FIDO’s entry into agentic commerce standards brings a certification infrastructure and 850-plus member organisations that the prior standards bodies lacked. Both the Agentic AI Foundation (AAIF, formed December 2025, 2025-w50) and the UCP Tech Council (expanded to ten members in April 2026, 2026-w17) are newer coalitions without FIDO’s formal balloting process. Mastercard and Visa chair FIDO’s Payments Technical Working Group — the same card networks that published the first agentic payment network protocols. Visa published the Visa Trusted Agent Protocol in October 2025 (2025-w42); Mastercard Agent Pay launched in April 2025 (2025-w18). Four distinct standards bodies now have active agentic commerce working groups: AAIF, UCP Tech Council, OpenID Foundation (2026-w09), and FIDO Alliance.