BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 2. Mastercard expects
AI agents to increasingly make payments on behalf of consumers
based on their intent, while users will retain control by setting
boundaries for transactions, Onur Doğan, Senior Vice President of
Services Business Development at Mastercard, said at the AI &
Digital Bridge 2026 forum in Astana.
“We will have the autopilot with the agents,” Doğan said,
comparing the future of AI-powered payments with autonomous
driving.
He said Mastercard has developed its next-generation Agent Pay
platform, which can search for products, compare them, and, based
on the consumer’s intent, complete transactions on the consumer’s
behalf.
“So our goal at Mastercard is also to provide a trusted and
secure environment, especially so that the consumer will have the
trust to give control within the defined boundaries,” Doğan
said.
He noted that AI agents will not have unlimited authority to
make purchases or other transactions.
“But we are in the control seat. We are in the driving seat, and
we are also defining the boundaries so that the agent, for example,
on Mastercard, will take all the transactions on your behalf based
on your intent,” he said.
According to Doğan, trust is currently the main issue in the
development of agentic payments, as consumers need to be confident
enough to allow AI agents to spend money on their behalf.
He also said AI is changing Mastercard’s payment infrastructure,
with the company moving toward what he described as a “smart
payment network” capable of understanding intent and context,
predicting risks, and supporting decision-making across the
network.
Doğan identified fraud and identity, consumer intent and
context, and payment infrastructure as three key areas being
transformed by AI.
