Alchemy and Mastercard Prepare One-Time Cards for AI Agents

Mastercard and Alchemy are preparing a payment option that would let cardholders authorize AI agents to make purchases inside preset limits. The promise is convenient delegated shopping; the constraint is that Mastercard says its anti-fraud rules were built to stop bots from transacting.

The intended use is more than an assistant recommending a product. Cardholders could let an agent independently order food or book travel after setting parameters such as a price range, rather than approving every checkout individually.

Alchemy says AgentCard packages the elements an automated buyer needs to operate online: a dedicated email address, phone number, stablecoin wallet and one-time-use Mastercard payment credentials. The company says developers can set up that package for an agent through one command-line interface in under a minute.

That boundary does not remove the central payments problem: proving that the software presenting itself at checkout is authorized. Mastercard chief AI and data officer Greg Ulrich said the company has accumulated risk rules meant to prevent bots from making transactions, and enabling agents requires a change to that framework.

The issue extends beyond this partnership. Mastercard, Visa and Ant International previously said they were working on common standards to verify trusted AI agents in online purchases. Shared verification could help merchants and payment networks recognize an agent, while each transaction still depends on the limits its cardholder set.

Alchemy already has a Visa partnership, according to Gizmodo. Adding Mastercard would give AgentCard another route into conventional card checkout alongside its stablecoin wallet, instead of making agent payments dependent on one card network.

The planned service makes the trade-off plain. It removes repeated human approval from routine purchases, but asks payment systems to accommodate automated activity without losing the protections that made unexpected automation suspicious in the first place.