Visa calls it Intelligent Commerce (AI). Mastercard calls it Agent Pay (AI). The names sound helpful. The shift is bigger.

When a payment network starts building for agents, the real change is not speed. It is authorship.

The old checkout asked: Do you want to buy this? The new one asks: What should your agent be allowed to do before you are asked anything at all?

That is where power moves. Not at the moment of payment, but earlier – at the level of permission design.

The future problem will not be “AI bought something.” It will be: which layer decided that this still counted as your choice?