SAN FRANCISCO—In a sweeping product event coinciding with its second quarter earnings, Visa Inc. unfurled its vi𓆏sion for the future of commerce, anchored in artificial intelligence and advanced payment technologies. The initiative💯, dubbed “Visa Intelligent Commerce,” signals not only an expansion of the company’s technological repertoire but also its outlook on evolving consumer behaviors, which CEO Ryan McInerney characterized as “resilient” amid economic turbulence.

Redefining the Shopping Experience: AI Agents Take Center Stage

For years, Visa has harnessed artificial intelligence prima💙rily as a bulwark against fraud, scanning billions of transactions for suspicious activity. Today, the company is broadening AI’s mandate. “We’re now enabling consumers to have more effective and efficient shopping experiences,” Mr. McInerney told CNBC’s Kate Rooney in an exclusive interview. “Whether you’re buying a new set of tennis shoes to run a marathon or a Mother’s Day present, your AI agent will soon be able to shop on your behalf.”

Unlike traditional e-commerce, where consumers peruse endless inventories in search of the right product, Visa’s vision involves consumer-deployed AI agents—tools developed by leaders like OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, and others which Visa is integrating into its payment rails. These agents can hunt for deals,ඣ select items according to pre-set parameters (such as price ceilings or merchant preferences), and complete transactions on users’ behalf—so long as they are properly authorized, trusted, 📖and authenticated through Visa’s infrastructure.

“We’ve introduced AI-ready Visa credentials, built on our proven tokenization technology,” Mr. McInerney explained. That tokenization, now encompassing 13 billion tokens globally, bin🐠ds an individual Visa credential to a specific agent and transaction, providing consumers with granular control—how much their agent can spend, where it can shop, an🐽d under what circumstances it can act.

The launch, whꦓile reminiscent of Mastercard’s announcements this week, reflects a broader trend: advanced, open AI commerce is fast becoming table stakes in the payments industry. “The entire ecosystem needs to embrace this,” McInerney said, citing a need for standards and trust to unlock the promise of agentic commerce at global scale.

Taming Complexity with Standards—and Trust

As the payments landscape grows ever more intricate, the risk to consumers rises; an errant or hijacked AI agent connected to a credit card account is a tempting target for fraudsters. Visa’s approach is to double down on its core assets: network ubiquity and sophistica𝓰ted security.

“Tokenization means we can tell precisely w✨hich agent you’ve authorized,” the CEO said. Transaction protocols not only ensure a legitimate agent is spending on a user’s behalf, they also offer transparency to issuing banks, which view all the relevant data in real time. “With 4.8 billion credentials and acceptance at 150 million merchant locations in over 200 countries, the scale and trust we’ve built are what enable this next wave.”

AI’s Broader Impact: Productivity and the Nature of Work

It is not just the consumer-facing side of Visa’s business undergoing transformation. Across the company, AI is fueling a productivity surge—an effect echoed by Satya Nadella of Microsoft, who recently asse🅠rted that 30% of coding is now handled by AI model🎉s. Mr. McInerney confirmed similar figures at Visa, not just in engineering, but in sales, marketing, finance, and HR.

“AI is empowering our teams to be more productive, ship products faster, and serve clients more effectively,” Mr. McInerney noted. Asked whether this technological leap could result in reduced headcount, he struck a pragmatic tone: “For Visa, it’s about enabling our people to achieve more—not necess🍷arily about cutting jobs, but about accelerating throughput and innovation.”

Stablecoins and Next-Gen Payments: Meeting Global Needs

In parallel to its AI push, Visa announced a deepening of its foray into digital assets, unveiling a partnership with Br꧃idge to de🌱liver stablecoin payments via Visa cards. While the idea of using cryptocurrencies for everyday purchases has generated more headlines than transaction volume in developed markets, the need is acute elsewhere.

“The biggest product-market fit for stablecoins is outside the U.S.—in countries with high inflation, currency 💧controls, or limited access to dollars,” Mr. McInerney said. For customers in such environments—and for partners ranging from Coinbase to newer crypto exchanges—Visa’s stablecoin account allows users to spend their digital dollars anywhere Visa is accepted. “That’s been a really important product, letting people use funds without thinking about conversion or acceptance.”

The “Resilient” Consumer: Insights from the Visa Network

Perhaps the most striking message from Visa’s latest quarter was the ongoing strength in consumer spending—despite persistent headlines warning of inflation, tariffs, and waning confidence. The company saw overall payment volume grow 8% year-over-year in the latest quarter—9% interna𒁏tionally and 6% in the U.S.—a trend that remained steady into late April.

“What we’re seeing, looking across co𝕴nsumer segments and merchant segments globally, is resilient spending,” McInerney emphasized. “Yes, there’s anxiety, and consumer sentiment data reflects that. But when we look at what’s actually happening day in 🍨and day out on our network, people are still spending at a steady clip.”

He acknowledged that beneath this steady growth are pockets of divergence: some consumer cohorts and merchant categories show strength while others, such as travel, are softening somewhat from th🙈e post-pandemic surge. Still, “discretionary and non-discretionary spending across the board remain resilient—no pullback has materialized in aggregate,” McInerney said.

Navigating Uncertainty: Multi-Pronged Growth

The company projects confidence not only because of past performance, but due to the breadth of its business—spanning consumer payments, value-added services, and co🔯mmercial/money movement flows. In lean times, Visa sees opportunity in digitizing cash and account-based payments, and in expanding value-added services that command new revenue streams.

“In recessionary periods, our business is much more diverse than 💃it was a decade ago,” Mr. McInerney said. “We’re present across geographies and customer types, which should help buffer any slower macro environment.”

This conviction was underscored by a $30 billion stock buyback authorization—a move signaling board-level optimism in Visa’s future growth trajectory. “It’s putting o🎶ur capital to work in service of investors and the company,” McInerney said, adding that robust internal R&D and opportunistic M&A remain on the table as complementary strategies.

Looking Ahead: Long-Term Bets Amid Turbulence

The future is, of course, rife with unknowns. Visa’s global footprint means it is ine𝔍xorably tied to tariffs, geopolitics, and shifting consumer sentiment. The company maintains a regimen of scenario planning but remains focused on medium- and long-term opportunitiܫes.

On cross-border travel, which was hammered during the pandemic and faces new challenges from geopolitical fragmentation, McInerney projects a return to growth: “Experiences matter deeply, especially to younger generations. Our view is that travel, and the experience economღy more broadly, will resume its upward trajectory.”

If there was one aspect of the quarter that surprised Visa’s chief, it was not negative—it was, 🍌again, the tenacity of consumers: “I continue to be encouraged by the resilience we’re seeing, in the U.S. and globally, despite the noise and uncertainty.”

As Visa steers into a ne𒐪w era of AI-powered commerce and diverse payment flows, it must balance innovation with trust—always aware of the undercurrents running through the global economy. For now, both the network꧙, and the consumers it serves, remain firmly in motion.