Visa starts a live pilot for AI agents that pay supplier invoices

Visa, BILL and Billtrust told on 20 October 2026 that they started the first live pilot for registered AI agents. The agents start and complete approved invoice payments in supplier portals. Until this time, many portals had a manual login, and this kept the payment manual. The agent pays for a known buyer. The companies give no numbers.

How it works

The BILL Payment Agent must be registered in a Visa directory. It uses tokenized (replaced by a safe code) payment credentials, not one login that many persons use.

Billtrust identifies the agent and gives it access. Visa tells that this can replace CAPTCHA checks and a different agent login.

What the pilot has

• A known agent that works for a known buyer.
• Payment controls tied to the approved payment instruction.
• A payment path tied to one invoice.
• Visibility of the start and the end of the payment.

What is not known

There are no results on speed, cost or fraud. Visa tells that it tests how identity, payment controls and visibility make the model work. BILL tells that almost 500,000 businesses use it, but the source does not tell how many are in the pilot.

Insight: Card networks tie agent protection to agent registration

Visa has a directory where the agent must be registered before it can pay. American Express tells that it protects a Card Member from an agent error only if the agent is registered with Amex. Amex must also authenticate the purchase intent. This reads as if each card network wants to control the agent registry, since the registry selects which agents merchants accept. Find which registry your agents must use.