Consumers Use AI Assistants but Hesitate to Hand Over Their Wallets

Visa’s research found that 72% of consumers have used an artificial intelligence assistant, but only 23% of U.S. consumers in the United States trust generative AI to handle payments on their behalf, according to the release.

However, when payments brands are added to the consideration, consumers’ confidence in agentic commerce increases. For example, 61% of consumers said they would trust Visa to handle agentic transactions, per the release.

Trust was key to consumer adoption of eCommerce and mobile payments, and the same is true with agentic commerce, Oliver Jenkyn, group president, Visa, said in the release.

“While we’re still in the early days, trust will be foundational to driving agentic commerce adoption,” Jenkyn said. “Consumers will increasingly look to trusted payment experiences and brands as they deploy AI agents to shop on their behalf.”

Meanwhile, the PYMNTS Intelligence report “Global Digital Shopping Index: The Agentic Commerce Deep Dive,” a Visa Acceptance Solutions collaboration, found in July that consumers have different levels of trust when it comes to the sorts of tasks that AI agents can perform.

While 56% of consumers will let an agent search and compare products, and 51% will let it manage their loyalty program, only 35% of consumers will allow an agent to access their saved payment credentials, according to the report.

“Still, most consumers say they would let agents make purchases for them if the right guardrails are in place,” the report said.

Another PYMNTS Intelligence report, “From Assistive to Agentic AI: Consumers Wade into Autonomous Commerce,” found in January that while consumers are interested in AI-native commerce, their trust remains anchored in familiar payment credentials and credit card networks.

“Consumers are ready to delegate meaningful purchasing and financial tasks to agentic AI,” the report said. “However, broad adoption will be constrained and shaped by ‘payments-grade’ trust. This includes transparent controls, clear data governance, and credential and rail choices anchored in banks, wallets and card networks, rather than in the AI layer alone.”

When interviewed for the eBook “AI Changes Commerce. Visa Wants Trust to Scale With It,” Visa executives told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster that Visa is focusing its value-added services strategy on becoming the connective layer between AI-driven commerce and the trust that supports it.

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