How to give an AI agent a card: issuing, tokenization and the Vault
What we've learned so far about giving AI agents a card
AI agents can research, compare, fill in forms and get all the way to the checkout page. Then they stop. Someone has to pay, and the agent has nothing to pay with.
That gap is why Agentcard exists. Agentcard has gone through three iterations so far. Each one taught us something about what people actually need, and all three shaped the product we have today.
1. Card issuing
We thought this was what people wanted: give agents a card and a wallet. Most of the industry is still stuck here.
For companies, issuing works, and it's still part of Agentcard. A business verifies once, loads a balance, and its agents issue their own cards: single-use for a one-off purchase, multi-use for a subscription.
For consumers, we learned that this model doesn't make sense for two reasons:
- KYC. A new card means verifying your identity. Why should you have to do KYC to buy a burger?
- Pre-funding. The wallet has to be funded before the agent can spend, and that takes time: three business days for ACH. Crypto is instant, but most US banks won't let you buy crypto, so it created a lot of friction.
2. Card tokenization
Next, we implemented Visa and Mastercard's official protocols for agentic payments. You share a card, we create a one-time card on top of it, and we share that card with the agent.
After testing it with consumers, we found two problems:
- Most cards don't work. Many aren't supported yet, which creates a lot of friction.
- 3D Secure on every transaction pulls the person back in at exactly the moment the agent was supposed to take over.
3. The Vault, our current solution
With the Vault, we store any card you have, and your agent pays with it without ever seeing the number.
The Vault works with every card, from any country. The Vault needs a browser integration to work (Kernel, Browserbase and others), the implementation is fast, and it's free for companies up to 5,000 users.
Where we're going
We will keep working on the product until a consumer's agent pays with any card without pulling them back to the checkout, and a developer adds it to their agent with one browser integration. We also launched Agentcard Voice, so your users can approve purchases with their voice.
If you're building an agent or an AI assistant that needs to buy things, we'd like to talk. Get started or book a call.