Mastercard has opened early access for developers to Agent Pay for Machines, a program that lets an AI agent make nine purchases from two merchants after a single prior human approval. In a demonstration with marketing agency Hype, the agent bought a social media study from AIsa and eight campaign visuals through Cloudflare’s AI Gateway, without opening accounts or reconciling invoices. Transactions rely on the Coinbase-backed x402 protocol: the agent signs a capped digital voucher, payment is secured immediately, and merchants collect their vouchers in batches. Settlement runs through Base and stablecoin infrastructure provider BVNK, which Mastercard acquired for $1.8 billion in August, while seven companies have already tested the program. Early access remains at the pilot stage with no launch date announced, but Mastercard forecasts that one in ten people will let an agent make their purchases by 2030.
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