Mastercard expands Agent Suite to help merchants scale AI-powered shopping experiences

Mastercard Updates Agent Suite for AI-Powered Shopping

Mastercard has expanded its Agent Suite for Merchants, a platform first introduced in January, to help businesses integrate AI-powered shopping experiences directly into their e-commerce platforms1

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. The updated suite enables agent-powered shopping capabilities including product discovery, research, and consumer-authorized purchases within existing eCommerce environments1

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. As consumers increasingly rely on AI assistants to discover products, compare options, and make purchase decisions, merchants need infrastructure that allows AI agents to find, understand, and act on product information2

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Agent Connect Simplifies Integration for Merchants

Mastercard has introduced Agent Connect, a solution designed to help merchants, AI agents, digital platforms, and payment providers connect and transact through a single integration1

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. This streamlines the process of participating in AI-driven commerce by allowing businesses to make merchant-defined information—including product details, pricing, availability, and fulfillment options—accessible across models, platforms, and agent experiences while maintaining control over how that information is used and represented2

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. The company is also collaborating with AI platforms like Anthropic, making the commerce agent blueprint available to merchants so they can more easily build shopping agents with Claude models that integrate Mastercard's capabilities1

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Merchants Cautious About Automated Checkout and Pricing Control

Despite the push toward agentic commerce, recent PYMNTS Intelligence research reveals that merchant investment in AI-driven commerce centers on building demand while maintaining control over payments and pricing2

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. According to the findings, 46% of merchants identified pricing and the final price customers pay as functions they are least willing to let AI agents handle2

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. Investment thins as AI approaches the transaction itself, with 31% of merchants planning to invest within a year in automated product search and comparison, compared with 26% for completing automated checkout on a consumer's behalf2

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. Nearly half of merchants categorize capabilities such as multi-merchant bundling, autonomous checkout, or dispute management as "later or never" priorities2

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Mastercard Positions for the Future of Commerce

Jorn Lambert, Chief Product Officer at Mastercard, emphasized the transformative nature of this shift, stating that AI agents will change the buying interface by moving commerce from search and discovery to checkout and disputes1

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. He noted that Mastercard is helping businesses prepare for this future while keeping them in control through principles that have always made commerce work at scale: trust, interoperability, security, and reach1

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. With Agent Suite for Merchants, businesses can prepare product information for AI discovery, connect with participating third-party agents, and support secure agentic transactions with Mastercard Agent Pay2

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. As agentic commerce becomes more complex with agents acting as a negotiating layer between merchants and consumers, Mastercard's solutions aim to provide transaction security while enabling merchants to maintain control over how their products and services are represented in this evolving landscape2

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