Alipay Debuts AI Wallet as Part of New Payments Infrastructure

China’s Alipay has launched what it calls “the world’s first AI Wallet and Token Pay to power agentic economy.”

The company announced this offering Tuesday (May 26) as part of a new artificial intelligence (AI) payments infrastructure for companies ranging from AI firms to traditional retailers.

“While the essence of commerce remains unchanged in the age of AI, the emergence of AI agents is reshaping everything,” Cyril Han, CEO of Alipay parent Ant Group, said in a news release provided to PYMNTS.

“Drawing on 22 years of technological expertise and commercial know-how, Alipay is building a new generation of AI payment services to accelerate the growth of the agentic commerce ecosystem,” Han added.

Those services include the wallet, which is designed to give users more visibility into and control over payments made via AI agents.

“To ensure AI agents make trusted transactions on behalf of users, Alipay launched China’s first Agentic Commerce Trust Protocol with partners, creating a ‘common language’ for collaboration between AI and service platforms,” the release said.

Alipay also launched an intelligent security system for AI payments “to provide foundational safeguards for every AI agent-driven transaction,” according to the release.

In addition to the AI Wallet, Alipay has introduced Token Pay, designed to provide a solution for AI companies’ transaction-related needs, such as global subscription payments or token top-up in AI agents.

“As AI agents begin helping people search for information, shop, order food, and even make money, payments are no longer just the ‘final step’ — they are becoming a capability embedded from the very beginning,” Lin Zhu, general manager of Alipay’s AI payment business.

“Only when trusted transactions, seamless payments and secure controls are all in place can agentic commerce truly take off.”

The launch comes at a time when many merchants are not prepared for the advent of AI agents, PYMNTS wrote earlier this week.

“AI agents do not browse, do not click, and do not read product descriptions written for humans,” according to the report. “They query, evaluate and transact in seconds. Merchants whose infrastructure is not built to receive them are not losing sales to a better price. They are losing sales before the agent ever decides to compare.”