Mastercard launched early access to Agent Pay for Machines, a system enabling AI agents to discover services, agree to terms and pay for them automatically within human-set spending limits. The system is built on the x402 protocol and uses digitally signed payment vouchers that an agent generates automatically when encountering a payment-required response. During a demo at Cloudflare Connect, a marketing agent executed an ad campaign across nine payments to two separate merchants, with settlement processed via Coinbase, the Base network and BVNK in fiat or stablecoins. This solution addresses a growing problem: AI agents are becoming economic actors that need to purchase services from multiple providers without holding separate accounts with each one.
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