Update
Mastercard Unveils AI Agent Payments System
At Cloudflare Connect, Mastercard demonstrated an AI agent running a sample ad campaign across nine payments to two merchants on a single approved budget. The system, called Agent Pay for Machines, allows autonomous software to discover and pay for services within limits set by a human, addressing the challenge of AI agents needing to buy data and services from multiple providers. The company first announced the system in June and unveiled it at the Connect conference, where Jorn Lambert demonstrated a live transaction. The system builds on x402, the open protocol that lets online services request payment, and pairs it with Mastercard’s network.