Mastercard and Google have introduced Verifiable Intent, a standards based framework designed to verify user authorisation when artificial intelligence agents make purchases on a consumer’s behalf.
The initiative addresses the rise of agentic commerce, where AI systems move from assisting users to planning purchases and executing transactions autonomously.
Verifiable Intent creates a tamper resistant cryptographic record linking a user’s identity, instructions and the resulting transaction.
Pablo Fourez, Chief Digital Officer, Mastercard, said,
“Consumers need confidence and verifiable evidence that agents will follow instructions while maintaining privacy. Merchants need assurance that an agent is authorized to transact. Issuers must distinguish legitimate activity from fraud.
And if something goes wrong, everyone needs facts — not guesswork. Meeting these needs requires a new model of trust, designed specifically for agentic commerce, and built with privacy at the center.”
Mastercard said the framework establishes a shared source of truth that can be used to verify transactions and resolve disputes when payments are initiated by AI agents.
The system uses selective disclosure so that only the minimum transaction data is shared when required for fraud checks or dispute resolution.
Verifiable Intent was co developed with Google and is aligned with Google’s Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) and Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP).
It is also built on open standards from organisations including the FIDO Alliance, EMVCo, the Internet Engineering Task Force and the World Wide Web Consortium, allowing it to work across different platforms, wallets and payment networks.
Mastercard plans to integrate Verifiable Intent into the intent APIs of its Agent Pay platform in the coming months to support real world adoption with partners.
The company has also open sourced the specification and reference implementation on GitHub and at verifiableintent.dev.
“As AI agents begin to act more independently, it’s essential that user intent remains clear, provable, and protected.
Strong, interoperable trust infrastructure like Verifiable Intent that is compatible with Agent Payments Protocol is a natural accelerator for scaling agentic commerce, and we’re proud to have collaborated with Mastercard on this initiative.”
said Stavan Parikh, Vice President and General Manager, Payments, at Google.
Industry players including Adyen, Fiserv and Worldpay have also expressed support for the framework as automated systems begin participating directly in commerce.
Featured image: Edited by Fintech News Singapore, based on image by 3Dsss via Freepik
