Cloudflare has announced a major partnership with global payment networks Visa, Mastercard, and American Express to build a new secure AI shopping ecosystem, marking a major milestone in the evolution of digital commerce. The collaboration focuses on developing the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), an open standard designed to enable AI-powered shopping agents to make secure, transparent, and verifiable transactions on behalf of consumers.
The initiative aims to prepare the global payments infrastructure for a future where intelligent AI agents can browse products, compare prices, initiate purchases, and manage payments with minimal human intervention. By integrating financial institutions into the protocol design, the consortium seeks to ensure that automation in e-commerce operates within the same trust and compliance standards as traditional online payments.
In a statement, Matthew Prince, CEO and co-founder of Cloudflare, said the partnership represents a critical step toward making agentic AI commerce safe and scalable. “As AI transforms how people and businesses interact online, we need to ensure that the systems facilitating these interactions are secure, accountable, and interoperable. This collaboration will set the foundation for a new generation of trustworthy AI-driven transactions,” he said.
The Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) is an open-source framework developed by Cloudflare that allows AI shopping agents to authenticate and execute payments safely through trusted gateways. It will act as a universal standard for verifying identities, protecting user data, and maintaining transaction integrity in autonomous digital environments.
Through this collaboration, Visa, Mastercard, and American Express will help embed existing payment verification systems, such as tokenization and real-time fraud prevention, into the ACP architecture. This integration ensures that AI agents making purchases adhere to established compliance and security norms while minimizing risks of misuse or fraud.
According to Cloudflare, ACP will also allow consumers to define spending limits, approve or reject transactions, and monitor AI agent activity through transparent dashboards. This will enable users to maintain control even as automated systems manage tasks like subscription renewals, product reordering, or personalized shopping experiences.
Visa’s Global Head of Innovation, Terry Angelos, said that AI has the potential to revolutionize commerce but requires a framework that ensures consumer safety. “We are entering an era where AI agents will play a direct role in financial transactions. To make this possible, the underlying infrastructure must guarantee trust and compliance at every step. Our partnership with Cloudflare is about building that trusted foundation,” Angelos explained.
Mastercard echoed this sentiment, emphasizing its focus on responsible AI integration. The company stated that the collaboration with Cloudflare will help create guardrails for agent-driven payments while supporting innovation in digital marketplaces. The framework aligns with Mastercard’s broader strategy to embed AI in payment authentication, cybersecurity, and predictive fraud prevention systems.
American Express, known for its premium financial services, will contribute its expertise in secure identity verification and high-value transaction management to the initiative. A spokesperson said that the partnership underscores American Express’s commitment to building resilient digital ecosystems capable of supporting next-generation AI applications.
Analysts see this alliance as a pivotal move toward defining how agentic AI commerce—where AI systems autonomously perform economic actions—will function safely at scale. The initiative comes amid growing momentum in the development of personal and enterprise AI assistants capable of managing shopping, scheduling, and financial tasks. By standardizing how these systems interact with payment networks, ACP could become a cornerstone for future e-commerce innovation.
Cloudflare’s technology infrastructure plays a key role in enabling secure, low-latency transactions across global networks. With one of the world’s largest content delivery and security networks, Cloudflare is positioned to handle the high computational and security demands of AI-driven commerce. The ACP will leverage Cloudflare’s Zero Trust architecture, ensuring that every AI agent-to-merchant transaction undergoes authentication before approval.
In practical terms, the Agentic Commerce Protocol will act as a digital passport for AI agents—verifying their legitimacy and ensuring that only authorized systems can perform financial actions. This reduces the risk of rogue AI programs or malicious automation attempting to exploit payment platforms.
The introduction of ACP also addresses a growing challenge in AI adoption: transaction transparency. Unlike human users, AI agents operate at speeds and volumes that can make tracking and auditing difficult. Cloudflare’s protocol introduces traceability layers that record every step of an AI agent’s financial activity, ensuring accountability and compliance with international regulatory frameworks.
Industry experts say the partnership could redefine how e-commerce and digital payments evolve in the age of AI. Sarah Brown, a fintech analyst at Forrester Research, said, “The Cloudflare-Visa-Mastercard collaboration could set the global benchmark for AI commerce security. As intelligent agents begin to make financial decisions, it’s essential that they operate within an ecosystem of trust and oversight.”
The initiative also comes amid a broader push by technology companies to establish global standards for AI governance. By involving major payment networks early, Cloudflare and its partners are ensuring that financial infrastructure evolves alongside AI innovation rather than lagging behind it.
The first phase of the project will focus on testing ACP in controlled environments, with pilot implementations expected in 2026. These trials will include select retail partners and fintech platforms, allowing Cloudflare and its collaborators to refine the system before commercial rollout.
As commerce becomes increasingly autonomous, this collaboration represents a proactive approach to security and regulation. With AI now capable of mimicking human decision-making, Cloudflare’s partnership with Visa, Mastercard, and American Express provides a necessary framework for balancing innovation with safety.
The deal not only reinforces Cloudflare’s leadership in internet security but also highlights a new direction for the fintech industry—where AI, cybersecurity, and payments converge to create a trusted digital economy.