Visa and Akamai Collaborate to Solve Identity Challenges in Agentic Commerce

Visa and cybersecurity and cloud computing company Akamai Technologies are collaborating to strengthen the trust layer in agentic commerce.

This collaboration will integrate Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol with Akamai’s edge-based behavioral intelligence, user recognition, and bot and abuse protection, the companies said in a Wednesday (Dec. 17) press release emailed to PYMNTS.

By bringing together these solutions, the companies aim to help merchants identify a legitimate artificial intelligence (AI) agent and its intent, link the agent to the consumer it represents, and enable secure payment interactions, according to the release.

“By combining the Visa Trusted Agent Protocol with Akamai’s deep user recognition and threat intelligence, we’re solving the dual-identity challenge that’s crucial to AI commerce,” Patrick Sullivan, chief technology officer, security strategy at Akamai Technologies, said in the release. “We prove both who the agent is and, critically, who it represents.”

Jack Forestell, chief product and strategy officer at Visa, said in the release that the growth of agentic commerce depends on every player in the ecosystem being able to trust agents.

“By collaborating with Akamai to deploy Trusted Agent Protocol, we’re delivering the real-time intelligence merchants need to support AI-driven experiences without introducing new risk,” Forestell said.

Visa introduced its Trusted Agent Protocol in October, saying the tool allows secure communication between merchants and AI agents and addresses the challenges around agentic commerce.

The company said it created the protocol in partnership with Worldpay and Cloudflare and received “insightful feedback” from earlier partners that include Adyen, Checkout.com, Fiserv, Microsoft, Nuvei and Shopify.

Visa CEO Ryan McInerney highlighted the Trusted Agent Protocol in his annual letter to shareholders released Dec. 9.

McInerney said the protocol is designed to let sellers use existing websites as agent-friendly storefronts, speeding time to market and simplifying integration.

“Generative AI-driven, or agentic, commerce is transforming the digital shopping experience,” McInerney said in the letter. “This shift will rival the impact that online shopping and mobile devices have had on commerce in past decades.”

Akamai reported Dec. 8 that it saw AI agent traffic surge on Black Friday (Nov. 28) to reach nearly 4 million requests across the company’s U.S. commerce customers.

“Cyber Week used to be all about human shoppers and traditional bots, but this year, AI officially showed up to play,” Tom Emmons, principal product architect at Akamai Technologies, said in a blog post.