Visa’s Future Payment AI Report: These Cryptocurrencies Should Be Used in Future Payments
Payment giant Visa views the use of stablecoins for micropayments as an inevitable necessity in the new economy driven by AI agents.
A new report published by Visa and analytics firm Artemis examines the role of AI agents in the future of commerce and the payment methods to be used in this process. According to the report, while traditional card systems remain ideal for large-scale transactions, stablecoins will play the leading role in very small payments occurring between software entities. Visa defines this new era as the “agent economy” and predicts that payments will take shape in a hybrid structure.
Existing card infrastructures will continue to be used for human-centric macro transactions such as travel bookings or subscription management. However, for micropayments under $1, such as API calls between software systems or renting processing power, stablecoins will be preferred due to low transaction costs. Fixed fees in existing card systems make such small payments uneconomical, whereas next-generation blockchains make this process possible by reducing transaction costs to under a cent.
Hybrid Payment Model in the AI Economy
Visa emphasizes that card systems and stablecoins are not competitors, but rather complementary parts of the same system. The company has begun integrating stablecoin support into its existing infrastructure through initiatives such as the Trusted Agent Protocol, Agent Payments Protocol, and Visa Intelligent Commerce. In this way, the trust and authorization mechanisms of traditional finance are brought together with the fast and cheap settlement capabilities of blockchain technology.
Furthermore, Visa has joined the Open USD (OUSD) project by collaborating with giants like BlackRock, Mastercard, and Coinbase. This new stablecoin project, which shares reserve revenues with participants, is at the core of Visa’s digital asset strategy. The company states that despite obstacles such as legal regulations and trust issues, stablecoins will be an inevitable force in this new machine-driven economy.