Latest news with #JackForestell
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Byte-Sized AI: Visa and Mastercard Link With AI Giants on Promise of Agentic
Byte-Sized AI is a bi-weekly column that covers all things artificial intelligence—from startup funding, to newly inked partnerships, to just-launched, AI-powered capabilities from major retailers, software providers and supply chain players. Two of the world's largest payment providers, Mastercard and Visa, announced this week that they will work with some of AI's largest companies to able agentic shopping experiences for consumers. Agentic shopping will happen when a consumer tells a model to buy an item for them, and the model obliges; for instance, if a consumer wants to purchase a black T-shirt made of 100 percent cotton, an AI agent can help find suitable options, and, in the future, will be likely to purchase directly for the consumer. More from Sourcing Journal Supply Chain Leaders Embrace AI, but Struggle to Bridge Technology Implementation Gap OpenAI Leans Into Shopping With ChatGPT Upgrades Amazon-Backed Glacier Grabs $16M Series A for AI-Assisted Recycling Robots Both companies are tokenizing consumers' physical payment information to make that happen—that is to say, they're creating digital tokens that can be used by AI agents to make secure purchases without giving up sensitive consumer information. Jack Forestell, Visa's chief product and strategy officer, said that kind of consumer protection will enable better outcomes for agentic shopping, while also garnering consumer trust. 'Soon people will have AI agents browse, select, purchase and manage on their behalf,' Forestell said in a statement. 'These agents will need to be trusted with payments, not only by users, but by banks and sellers as well.' Visa announced it has partnered with Anthropic, IBM, Microsoft, Mistral AI, OpenAI, and Perplexity, while Microsoft is starting with a Microsoft partnership it plans to expand to other providers in the future. The providers made it clear that consumers will be able to control how their money is spent; per Visa, consumers will be able to 'set spending limits and conditions, providing clear guidelines for agent transactions.' And, according to Mastercard, users will retain 'complete control over what the agent is allowed to purchase on their behalf, ensuring that the payments they make are securely authorized and identified.' While the technology is likely to have myriad use cases once agentic AI becomes more prevalent in shopping, Mastercard knows it can be used for simple consumer transactions and for B2B use cases. In its announcement, it shared an example about a small textile business. 'A small textile enterprise will be able to use their AI agent to handle sourcing, optimize payment terms and manage logistics with an international supplier. From there, the AI agent can complete the cross-border purchase using a Mastercard virtual corporate card token and arrange for cost-effective, expedited delivery,' Mastercard noted. The companies' announcements come in the same week OpenAI announced consumers would have access to refined shopping features meant to simplify product discovery and purchasing journeys for e-commerce. Skechers has teamed up with We Are Social Singapore to bring an AI-powered assistant into a physical store in Singapore. The assistant, which it calls Luna, has the ability to take into account customers' preferences—alongside what they are actively wearing—to recommend products, and how to style them, for that consumer. Luna interacts with customers through a kiosk or through messaging app Telegram, and can point consumers in the direction of in-store products or online items. Manolis Perrakis, innovation director at We Are Social Singapore, said the activation is a display of the way AI agents may start interacting with consumers in real time, both physically and digitally. 'The emergence of AI speech-to-speech technologies is powering an agentic AI revolution that forms the backbone of future consumer-facing systems. Luna is an additional touchpoint for Skechers to complement its innovative retail experience, uniting retail and online environments into a seamless ecosystem. This integration empowers brands to strengthen customer relationships and drive dynamic, two-way conversations that connect the shop floor and customers' phones.' The activation is part of a short-term event to celebrate the opening of the store within the Punggol Digital District, so Luna will be a temporary fixture. Nonetheless, the assistant is another way brands have begun using AI-powered technology to interact directly with their consumers, though Luna is more novel than, say, using generative AI to power customer service chatbots for digital. Skechers latest experiment is evidence that brands continue to refine their approach to consumer personalization, particularly in a competitive retail environment. But as brands do so, they have to toe the line between helpful and creepy; data from Boston Consulting Group shows that two-thirds of consumers that have experienced AI-driven personalization said their encounters felt invasive or inaccurate. Sophia Kianni and Phoebe Gates announced late last month that they had launched Phia, which uses AI to give consumers insights on whether there's a way to buy a product they've viewed at a lower price. Users can download the Phia app or use the technology through extensions on desktop. When viewing an item on a brand or retailer's site, consumers using Phia are presented with a button that asks, 'Should I buy this?' From there, Phia generates a price summary—whether the price is low, typical or high—and suggests where a consumer can buy an identical or similar product for cheaper. It shows both options to buy new from sites like Amazon and to buy secondhand from marketplaces like Poshmark, Depop and eBay. The founders noted that their proprietary technology works for any e-commerce brand. Kianni said Phia helps encourage users to buy secondhand items; by showing them a variety of resale items, the technology wants to improve environmental outcomes and help consumers, who currently lack optimism about the U.S. economy, pay less for the goods they want or need to purchase. 'We, like so many consumers, want to shop smarter and make the most of our money,' Kianni said in a statement. 'Great secondhand options exist, but they're scattered across hundreds of websites—and no one has time to search them all. Our patented model solves that pain point by delivering instant price insights and better options to help customers make smarter, faster decisions with their money.' As companies fret over how their supply chain practices will be impacted by tariffs and economic uncertainty, technology providers want to use AI and automation to preemptively stop their headaches. Oracle announced in late April that it had added trade management capabilities to its supply chain and manufacturing cloud, focused on ensuring clients can adequately handle the changes to their operations onslaught by tariffs and trade agreements. It does so by automating certain processes, like product classification—the technology can help logistics managers easily understand which codes to use when importing new or altered products. It also pulls together information on foreign trade zone status, tracks imports or exports to create insights about duty drawback and generates reports to file such paperwork later on. Chris Leone, executive vice president of applications development for Oracle, said the new tool can help ensure leaders don't have to keep up with every trade update manually. 'Supply chain leaders are rising to the moment by seeking new ways to manage their business with global trade agreements and international tariffs in a state of flux. To help our customers with this complexity, we have added new capabilities within Oracle Global Trade Management that enable supply chain leaders to quickly respond to changes and minimize disruption to their global supply chains,' Leone said in a statement.
Finextra
3 days ago
- Business
- Finextra
Visa makes AI-driven commerce push in Asia Pacific
The future of commerce in Asia Pacific is on display at the Visa Asia Pacific Media Showcase, where the company announced a suite of product innovations and strategic partnerships to enable a new era of commerce for the region. 0 This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author. Jack Forestell, Visa's Chief Product and Strategy Officer said, 'Combining the strength of our global network with our leadership in payment innovation here in Asia Pacific, we are bringing new products and solutions that will transform commerce and deliver trust and security to AI-enabled payments across the region.' The Visa Asia Pacific media showcase highlighted how AI-enabled digital commerce will significantly change the way consumers across the region discover and purchase products and services. In the near future, AI agents will browse, select, purchase, and manage transactions on behalf of users, making trust in payments more important than ever. Visa's new AI-enabled solutions offer regional partners including AI platforms, fintechs, banks, and merchants a seamless way to connect to the Visa network to deliver secure, frictionless payment experiences. Headlining today's announcement, the company introduced Visa Intelligent Commerce, a new initiative that opens Visa's payments network to developers and engineers building the first generation of AI-powered commerce in Asia Pacific. Visa Intelligent Commerce: A New Era for Asia Pacific Visa Intelligent Commerce brings a suite of integrated APIs and a commercial partner program to AI platforms, enabling developers to deploy Visa's AI commerce capabilities securely and at scale. Visa announced today that it is in explorations with Ant International, Grab and Tencent to grow AI commerce by enabling a secure and seamless checkout experience. Ant International is a leading global digital payment, digitisation, and financial technology provider. Grab is Southeast Asia's leading super app offering ride-hailing, food delivery, digital payments, and financial services across eight markets. Tencent is a multinational technology leader that develops a wide range of digital products and services, including Weixin/WeChat, China's super app. Over the past 25 years, Visa's global network has handled 3.3 trillion transactions. Today, Visa is advancing its infrastructure, standards, and capabilities to power AI-driven commerce, opening new opportunities for consumers across Asia Pacific. Soon, AI agents integrated into familiar platforms will be able to transact using Visa's 4.8 billion credentials at millions of merchant locations worldwide. T.R. Ramachandran, Head of Products and Solutions, Asia Pacific, Visa, said, 'As global commerce continues to evolve rapidly, Visa remains at the forefront of delivering innovations that will enable the future of commerce across Asia Pacific.' 'We believe AI agents will play a growing role in commerce, from handling routine purchases such as ordering food, to more complex purchases such as securing event tickets or making travel reservations,' added Ramachandran. 'By combining AI capabilities with Visa's trusted payment infrastructure, we are enabling a seamless, secure, and more enjoyable experience for consumers, merchants, and businesses alike.' New Products and Capabilities for Asia Pacific Visa continues to expand its product portfolio with solutions designed to support the evolving payment needs of consumers and businesses across Asia Pacific. Stablecoins: Visa has been facilitating cryptocurrency transactions for over five years and is now expanding its offering to include stablecoin backed cards, settlement, and programmable money. On and off-ramps via stablecoin-backed cards allow consumers to use their Visa credentials to buy stablecoins with fiat currency and pay with stablecoin across Visa-accepting merchant locations. In Asia Pacific, Visa is partnering with DCS Singapore, DTC Pay and StraitsX on stablecoin-backed cards that support conversion through regulated infrastructure. Enabling seven-day-a-week settlement for stablecoins: Visa has settled more than $225 million to date in stablecoin volume that has been settled through Visa across participating clients. In Asia Pacific, Visa is working with StraitsX for stablecoin settlement. Through the Visa Tokenized Asset Platform (VTAP), Visa provides a platform for our partners to issue and manage fiat-backed tokens, offering interconnectivity to public and private blockchains, enabling programmable financing, trading of tokenized assets and facilitating cross-border money movement. Visa is looking to expand the availability of VTAP to more partners later this year and into 2026. Flex Credential: Visa's Flex Credential, a next-generation card that allows users to toggle between debit, credit, and reward points, continues to gain traction in Asia Pacific. Visa first launched Flex in partnership with Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) and Sumitomo Mitsui Card Company (SMCC), known as Olive, two years ago in Japan. Today, more than 5 million Olive account holders are benefitting from the Visa Flex Credential. The Olive card continues to outperform, with cardholder transactions averaging 40% higher than the national average in Japan over the past year. Visa and SMCC have expanded the Visa Flex Credential to support small businesses with the flexibility to switch between business and personal accounts using the same Olive card, enhancing access to credit and cash flow management. Visa is also collaborating with local banks in Vietnam to launch Flex Credential in the next few months. New Strategic Partnerships to Enable More Ways to Pay and Get Paid Visa is launching new services and partnerships to make it easier for consumers, merchants, and businesses in Asia Pacific to pay and get paid. Visa Pay: A service designed to connect any participating wallet to any Visa-accepting merchant, local or international, in-store or online, launches across Asia Pacific, home to the largest number of digital wallet users. Through partnerships with leading players including LINE Pay in Taiwan, Maya in the Philippines, OpenRice in Hong Kong, and Woori Card in South Korea, Visa is expanding access to its global network, giving consumers more ways to pay globally by tapping, scanning or online. Digital Identity: This suite of solutions includes Passkeys, Tap to Confirm, and enhanced data which are meant to identify and authenticate digital users. These solutions will reduce friction for consumers by being digitally native while improving payment security and authorisation rates with enhanced transaction data and state-of-the-art fraud prevention techniques. New partners in the region include Coles, a supermarket chain in Australia and Maybank, a leading financial services provider in Malaysia and Southeast Asia. Visa Accept is a new solution that allows micro-sellers to receive payments directly to their eligible Visa debit card using any NFC-enabled smartphone. Launching in Vietnam, the service supports micro-entrepreneurs and informal sellers such as street vendors, freelancers, and rural service providers. Participating issuers will enable cardholders to accept contactless payments through their bank's mobile app.
CNET
13-05-2025
- Business
- CNET
Do You Trust AI to Shop for You? Credit Card Companies Are Betting You Do
Getty Images/CNET AI will soon be able to make purchases based on preferences it learns about you. You just need to hand over your credit card. Visa and Mastercard both announced last week that their cardholders will be able to use artificial intelligence to automate credit card purchases for groceries, travel and everything else. Visa confirmed to CNET that testing for its new Visa Intelligent Commerce program is underway in North America, with widespread usage expected next year. Mastercard's Agentic Payments Program, similar to Visa's offering, is currently available in the US. "Soon people will have AI agents browse, select, purchase and manage on their behalf," Visa's chief product and strategy officer, Jack Forestell, said in the press release. "These agents will need to be trusted with payments, not only by users, but by banks and sellers as well." However, trusting AI isn't always an easy ask. It's often made news since its introduction for misleading responses and "hallucinations," fabricating information or operating in unexpected ways. Asking it what toppings to add to your pizza is one thing, but giving AI your financial information could have serious consequences. What happens if an AI agent hallucinates and makes a purchase worth hundreds of dollars, or is fed a scam link to a phishing site? Additionally, it's unclear how shopping recommendations will be delivered and vetted by these services. AI recommendations can be helpful so long as they're accurate and don't have ulterior motives. ChatGPT also announced last month that it is adding shopping features to its ChatGPT Search. However, ChatGPT's product doesn't purchase the items for you. These AI agents could make it easier to find products, cutting down on the time you're researching and saving you a click or two, but you might not have the same confidence in the purchase if you did it yourself. What is AI-powered shopping? Visa's and Mastercard's new programs are designed to use AI to learn your buying habits and customize your shopping experience. But they take this a step further, allowing you to authorize AI to make purchases on your behalf. As an example, Mastercard said if you're planning a party, the AI agent will recommend supplies, outfits, venues and vendors based on your preferences and conversation, then ultimately make the purchases for you. It's unclear how the AI agent will determine the best product for you, or whether companies can pay to have their products promoted. Both programs are tokenized for security, which basically means your credit card information is replaced with a one-time-use key so the AI agent doesn't use your actual credit card info. It's similar to using a virtual card number. Visa and Mastercard said that you won't need a new credit card to take advantage of the new AI tools, and you can set up controls, such as spending limits and purchase restrictions. Both companies said their existing credit card fraud protections extend to the AI agents, along with any dispute resolution. Does anyone really need AI-powered shopping? While some implementations of generative AI are helpful and solve issues in everyday life, not all things need to be automated with AI. At least on the surface, the biggest benefits of these new AI agents are tailoring a custom shopping experience and cutting down on time spent researching and ultimately checking out. While those improvements could indeed be convenient, they could also make spending money even easier since you need less time to complete the purchase. The agent could also connect you with products that might not be what you'd normally purchase without its suggestion that could lead to credit card debt. Beyond learning your shopping preference, most of the other features are already available in some form. Bill payments and subscriptions can already be automated without the need for AI to purchase things on your behalf. You can already use generative AI like ChatGPT to help narrow down product offers if you so choose, or check Google reviews yourself to find the right fit. Your personal data, like how you shop, is also a hotter commodity than many people realize, and consent to use it shouldn't be given away lightly. Is it safe to use AI-powered shopping? While Visa and Mastercard fraud protections extend to these AI purchases, past issues raise the question of whether you should hand over your financial information to AI. It's one thing when an AI hallucinates extra fingers on a generated image or presents something as a historical fact that never happened. But you should be especially cautious when it comes to spending your money and sharing personal habits, at least for now. "Trusting these tools to make any financial decision for you, no matter how small, carries some risk that they won't do what you're expecting them to do," CNET senior AI editor Jon Reed said. "If you do decide to use these tools, make sure to keep a close eye on your financial accounts and transactions to spot anything unexpected before it becomes a bigger problem."
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Visa and Mastercard unveil AI-powered shopping
Artificial intelligence is not just infiltrating the startup world. Now credit card giants Visa and Mastercard are getting into the AI game. Visa announced on Wednesday 'Intelligent Commerce,' which it says enables AI 'to find and buy.' AI agents will be able to shop and make purchases on behalf of consumers, based on preselected preferences. In a statement, Visa chief product and strategy officer Jack Forestell said: 'Each consumer sets the limits, and Visa helps manage the rest.' Visa says that it is collaborating with a mix of tech giants and startups to develop AI-powered shopping experiences that are 'more personal, more secure, and more convenient.' Those companies include Anthropic, IBM, Microsoft, Mistral AI, OpenAI, Perplexity, Samsung, and Stripe, among others. The move follows Mastercard's announcement on Tuesday that it would give AI agents the ability to shop online for consumers. Mastercard said its new Agent Pay offering 'will enhance generative AI conversations for people and businesses alike' by integrating payments into tailored recommendations and insights already provided on conversational platforms. In a statement, it said: 'This means that for a soon-to-be-30-year-old planning her milestone birthday party, she can now chat with an AI agent to proactively curate a selection of outfits and accessories from local boutiques and online retailers based on her style, the venue's ambience, and weather forecasts. Based on her preferences and feedback, the intelligent agent can make the purchase, and also recommend the best way to pay, for example, using Mastercard One Credential.' Mastercard said it will work with Microsoft on new use cases to scale 'agentic commerce,' as well as with IBM, Braintree, and on other aspects of AI-powered shopping. Visa and Mastercard aren't the only ones allowing for AI-powered shopping. On Tuesday, PayPal announced its own agentic commerce offering. And earlier this month, Amazon announced the start of testing a new AI shopping agent, a feature it calls 'Buy for Me,' with a subset of users. OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity have also showcased similar agents that can visit websites and help users make purchases. OpenAI said Monday that it was updating ChatGPT search, its web search tool in ChatGPT, to give users an improved online shopping experience. This story was updated to include PayPal's AI agent.
NDTV
06-05-2025
- Business
- NDTV
Prepared To Give Your Credit Card To AI To Buy Groceries? Visa Wants You To
Quick Take Summary is AI generated, newsroom reviewed. Visa plans to let AI chatbots access customers' credit cards. The initiative aims to enable AI agents to handle shopping autonomously. Visa is collaborating with leading AI developers like OpenAI, Perplexity. In a move that appears straight out of a Black Mirror episode, Visa is planning to give Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots access to customers' credit cards to buy goods for them. After a user has set their preferences and budget, these AI agents will be able to find and buy clothes, groceries or an aeroplane ticket on their own, according to an Associated Press report. Visa is partnering with a group of leading AI chatbot developers, such as OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity and Mistral, to connect their AI systems to Visa's payment network. "We think this could be really important. Transformational, on the order of magnitude of the advent of e-commerce itself," said Jack Forestell, Visa's chief product and strategy officer. "Soon people will have AI agents browse, select, purchase and manage on their behalf. Visa is setting a new standard for a new era of commerce." Dubbed the "Visa Intelligent Commerce" scheme, the company is also working on the initiative with IBM, online payment company Stripe, and phone-maker Samsung. "Introducing Visa Intelligent Commerce, an initiative that will empower AI agents to deliver personalised and secure shopping experiences for consumers - at scale," the company stated. "From browsing and selection to purchase and post-purchase management, this program will equip AI agents to seamlessly manage key phases of the shopping process." Previous instance This is not the first instance when such an idea has been floated. Last month, Albert Saniger, the founder of AI shopping app Nate, was charged with fraud after it was revealed that the company relied on call centre employees from the Philippines to complete the purchases manually. Saniger founded the app in 2018, raising over $50 million in funding from investors such as Coatue and Forerunner Ventures. He promoted his product to investors and the public as a "magic shopping app" that simplified online shopping as customers could buy items from any e-commerce site with a single tap using the Nate app. Saniger claimed that the app took care of the rest of the checkout process, including billing and shipping information, using AI. However, as per the Department of Justice, the app's automation rate "was effectively zero per cent".
