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AI agents can make purchases safely only when they act within authority the user has explicitly granted—and when merchants and payment systems can verify that authority. In Google’s AP2 model, a trusted surface captures the user’s consent in a signed, bounded mandate; the agent presents proof for a particular purchase; and a verifier checks that the requested merchant, cart, amount, and other conditions fit the mandate before payment credentials are released. Merchant-verification protocols address a related but separate question: whether the party making a request is a genuine, identifiable agent acting with commerce intent.

How can an AI agent pay for something?

An AI agent should not be given an unrestricted payment credential and left to improvise at checkout. A safer design separates permission to act from the mechanics of paying: the user defines what the agent may do, the system checks the proposed purchase against that permission, and a credential provider or payment processor handles the authorized payment flow.

Google’s Agent Payments Protocol, or AP2, describes this kind of delegated payment. Its version 0.2 specification identifies five operational roles: the shopping agent, credential provider, merchant, merchant payment processor, and trusted surface. The protocol defines checkout and payment mandates, along with receipts, to provide evidence of what was authorized, what was bought, and how payment credentials were released.

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The important distinction is that an agent’s possession of a credential is not the same as a user’s authorization for a particular purchase. A system needs verifiable evidence that the user delegated authority and that the transaction falls inside the delegated scope. Google describes AP2’s aim as “Proving that a user gave an agent the specific authority to make a particular purchase.”

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What each role does

Role Function in the flow
Trusted surface Captures informed user consent and creates the signed mandate.
Shopping agent Searches, assembles a proposed purchase, and presents authorization evidence for it.
Merchant Provides the offer and handles the order, while checking relevant agent and commerce-intent information.
Credential provider Participates in the controlled release or use of the payment credential.
Merchant payment processor Processes the payment and checks payment authorization within its role.

These are protocol roles, not necessarily five separate companies or apps. The key design principle is the division of responsibility: user consent, shopping activity, merchant acceptance, credential handling, and payment processing should not collapse into an agent’s unchecked decision.

What is a mandate, and how does it authorize a purchase?

A mandate is a signed record of delegated authority. It describes what the user has allowed an agent to do, so a verifier can evaluate a proposed transaction against specific conditions rather than relying on a broad statement such as “buy something suitable.”

AP2 distinguishes mandate delegation—the user authorizes an agent—from action authorization—a verifier checks whether the evidence supports this particular action. The separation matters because valid permission to shop does not automatically authorize every item, merchant, or price the agent might encounter.

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Intent first, purchase-specific authorization next

For a delegated task, the user can sign an intent that sets conditions such as permitted merchants, a spending limit, timing, refundability, and whether the agent must ask for cart confirmation. The agent can then create a payment mandate tied to a specific cart and amount. A verifier can check that specific purchase against the signed intent before the payment proceeds.

Google’s developer guide illustrates an intent with an allowed merchant, an expiry, and automatic approval below a stated limit. If the proposed amount exceeds that limit, the payment mandate remains unsigned until a manager explicitly approves it. That is a crucial boundary: the agent may be allowed to prepare or propose a purchase without having authority to complete it.

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In practice, useful authorization answers several questions together: who is allowed to act, which merchant or merchants are acceptable, what is the maximum amount, when does the permission expire, what conditions apply to the cart, and which actions still require a person’s approval? The more precisely the mandate answers them, the less a verifier has to infer.

How do spending limits prevent an agent from overspending?

A spending limit works only if it is encoded as a condition and checked before payment authorization. A user-facing budget, a message to the agent, or an agent’s own promise to stay under budget is not equivalent to a verifier enforcing a signed limit.

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AP2’s example flow makes the control concrete: the user’s signed intent includes a limit, and the agent’s payment mandate binds authorization to a particular cart and amount. If that amount is over the threshold, the mandate is not signed automatically; a manager must approve it. This lets a system automate routine purchases while keeping an exception path for transactions outside the approved range.

Conditions worth defining

  • Merchant: Restrict purchases to a named or otherwise permitted seller where the system supports that condition.
  • Maximum spend: Define a ceiling, and ensure the amount checked is the amount attached to the proposed cart.
  • Time window: Set when the permission starts or expires so an old instruction does not remain open-ended.
  • Cart approval: Decide whether the agent may complete an eligible purchase automatically or must present the cart for confirmation.
  • Refundability: State whether the purchase must meet a refund-related condition, if that information is available to the verifier.

These conditions need to be meaningful at the point of enforcement. If the cart changes after a user approves it, the new amount or contents may no longer match the evidence that was checked. AP2’s binding of the payment mandate to a specific cart and amount is intended to make the proposed transaction—not merely the general shopping task—the object of authorization.

Limits are not a substitute for sensible account controls. OWASP’s listed safeguards for AI-agent payment systems include identity screening, sanctions checks, signed audit trails, fail-closed enforcement, rate limiting, and canonicalized receipts. For example, fail-closed enforcement means that if a required authorization check cannot be completed, the system should not proceed as though the check had passed. Rate limiting can constrain repeated attempts; it does not establish that any one purchase is legitimate.

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How does a merchant know an AI agent is legitimate?

A merchant needs evidence about the requester, but agent identity alone does not prove that the user authorized the requested purchase. Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol addresses the problem of an agent that is initially unknown to a merchant. It uses linked, verifiable, purpose-identifying, time-based signed credentials in request headers or bodies, allowing a merchant to validate the agent signature and assess whether the request carries commerce intent.

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Visa describes two broad points in the interaction. During browsing, an agent may retrieve product, inventory, shipping, and final-cost information. At payment, it supplies information needed to buy something or obtain paid access. The protocol gives merchants a way to recognize and assess agent requests, then control, limit, or complement the interaction based on what they verify.

Three checks that should remain separate

  1. Agent identity and signature: Is the requester the agent it claims to be, and does the signed request validate?
  2. User or device identity: Is there identity evidence for the user or device, where the implementation supplies it?
  3. Purchase authority: Is there a valid mandate or payment container showing that this specific cart and amount are authorized?

Passing the first check is not a substitute for the third. A correctly signed request can still describe an item, amount, or merchant outside the user’s mandate. Likewise, a mandate does not by itself establish that an unknown requester is the agent it claims to be. Merchant recognition and user authorization solve connected but distinct trust problems.

How are AP2 and Visa Trusted Agent Protocol different?

They address complementary parts of agentic commerce rather than serving as proof of one universal production standard. AP2 focuses on delegated purchase authorization and evidence around checkout and payment; Visa’s protocol focuses on helping merchants recognize and validate agent requests.

Comparison point Google AP2 Visa Trusted Agent Protocol
Primary evidence Signed intent and checkout or payment mandates; receipts provide transaction evidence. Linked, verifiable, purpose-identifying, time-based signed credentials in request headers or bodies.
Main verification question Did the user delegate this authority, and does the specific purchase fit its scope? Is the agent request identifiable and signed, and does it carry commerce intent?
Scope emphasized Conditions can include merchant, amount, timing, refundability, and cart confirmation. Agent identity and request purpose, with merchant control over the interaction.
Payment coverage Designed to work across cards, stablecoins, and real-time bank transfers. Merchant-recognition protocol; the cited specification does not establish comparable payment-rail coverage.
Deployment description Open protocol specification, version 0.2. Separate Visa Trusted Agent Protocol merchant specification.

Google announced AP2 on September 16, 2025, reporting collaboration with more than 60 organizations. That announcement indicates ecosystem participation, not universal merchant or processor support. A protocol’s design and ecosystem activity should not be mistaken for proof that every checkout, credential provider, or payment rail already implements it.

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What records help resolve a wrong or disputed purchase?

Receipts and signed authorization evidence create a trail connecting the user’s permission to the purchase that followed. AP2 defines checkout and payment receipts so participants can retain evidence of what the user authorized, what was bought, and how payment credentials were released. Merchants and processors can use signed checkout and payment evidence in an audit or dispute process.

A useful audit trail should make the relationship between authorization and transaction inspectable: the mandate’s conditions, the specific cart and amount presented for approval, the checks performed, and the resulting receipt. OWASP also identifies canonicalized receipts, signed audit trails, and fail-closed controls among relevant safeguards. Canonicalization is important because systems need a consistent representation of the transaction they are recording and comparing; otherwise, equivalent or altered data may be difficult to assess consistently.

These records help establish what happened; they do not guarantee a particular dispute outcome. A receipt can show that a purchase was processed under certain evidence, but it cannot by itself prove that goods were delivered as promised, that a merchant’s description was accurate, or that a refund is legally owed.

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Who is liable if an agent buys the wrong thing?

AP2 and merchant-verification protocols provide mechanisms for documenting authority and checking requests; they do not, on the available protocol descriptions, decide liability for every mistaken or disputed purchase. Responsibility may depend on the user’s mandate, the agent’s behavior, the merchant’s fulfillment, the payment provider’s terms, and the applicable law and consumer-protection rules.

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For a particular incident, the useful questions are factual: what did the user sign, did the transaction satisfy those conditions, did the cart or amount change, which identity and authorization checks passed, and what do the checkout and payment receipts record? A signed mandate can help distinguish an authorized transaction from an out-of-scope one, while an audit trail can help reconstruct the sequence. Neither should be treated as a blanket waiver of a party’s obligations.

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What should an organization check before enabling agent payments?

Organizations should treat agent payments as a controlled authorization system, not merely a new checkout interface. The protocol evidence is one layer; identity, policy enforcement, payment processing, and operational monitoring still matter.

  • Define the limits that a user or manager can approve, including merchant, amount, time, and confirmation requirements.
  • Bind payment authorization to the proposed cart and amount, and require renewed approval when a material condition is exceeded.
  • Verify agent signatures separately from user or device identity and purchase authority.
  • Keep signed, canonicalized records of the mandate, checkout evidence, payment evidence, and receipt.
  • Apply identity screening, sanctions checks, rate limits, and fail-closed behavior around the payment flow.
  • Confirm which merchants, credential providers, processors, and payment methods actually support the implementation being deployed.
  • Map the protocol flow to applicable regulated obligations; an agent initiating a payment does not remove those obligations.

The practical test is not simply whether the agent can reach a payment page. It is whether every party that must rely on the transaction can verify the agent, the user’s bounded permission, and the exact purchase—and whether the system stops safely when one of those checks fails.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a signed mandate guarantee that a purchase can be refunded?

No. A mandate records the authority and conditions under which an agent may purchase; it is not a guarantee about merchant fulfillment or refund rights. Any refund condition must be treated as a purchase constraint, while the actual remedy depends on merchant terms and applicable rules.

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Can these protocols determine who pays when an AI agent makes a mistake?

They can help preserve evidence about the user’s permission and the transaction, but protocol evidence alone does not assign legal responsibility. The mandate, transaction record, relevant contracts, and applicable law all matter.

Does AP2 mean every merchant can accept purchases from AI agents now?

No. AP2’s published design and the reported collaboration around its 2025 announcement do not establish universal implementation. Support depends on the merchant, credential provider, processor, and payment setup involved.

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