Visa study finds AI shopping agents complete purchases about 57% of the time
In brief
- Visa had 22 AI agents each run 15 attempts to buy three everyday products.
- Overall success rate was around 57%, with results varying widely between agents.
- Visa's research found 23% of respondents would trust AI agents with the actual payment.
- Visa has a commercial stake, promoting Intelligent Commerce and the Trusted Agent Protocol.
How Visa ran the test
Each of the 22 agents ran 15 separate shopping attempts, according to Crypto Briefing's account of the study. Visa's results site breaks down how each agent performed across its runs (it's the company's own scoreboard, not an independent audit).
Results varied widely.
Some agents did significantly better than others, and the ones running on the most advanced AI models posted the strongest results. Crypto Briefing reported that a version of Google's Gemini and an agent from Meta earned the highest scores. The product and version names in that report don't appear reliable, so we're leaving them out.
Shoppers trust AI to compare, not to pay
Visa's own agentic commerce research found that 54% of US adults said in 2026 they'd used AI tools for shopping tasks, up from 47% the year before. In the same research, 61% of consumers expressed confidence in AI for price comparison and 59% felt good about using it to check whether a product is in stock.
The payment step is where confidence drops off.
Only about 23% of respondents said they'd trust AI agents to handle the actual transaction. Those figures come from Visa's research, not from an outside survey.
Visa's stake in agent commerce
Visa isn't a neutral observer here. It has been promoting its Intelligent Commerce platform alongside the Trusted Agent Protocol, and both are designed to address the authentication and fraud questions that come up when software, not a person, makes the purchase.
Visa has worked with partners including Cloudflare and Microsoft on the protocol. The goal is to give merchants and payment networks a way to verify that an AI agent is legitimate and acting on a real customer's behalf.
Crypto Briefing noted that the company has a direct stake in how agent-driven purchases get built and secured. Keep that in mind when you read the 57% figure and the consumer numbers, since both come from Visa itself.
Frequently asked questions
How did Visa test AI shopping agents?
Visa had 22 different AI agents try to buy a TV, a laptop and a hair appliance. Each agent ran 15 separate shopping attempts. The overall success rate came in at around 57%, and Visa published how each agent performed on a new website.
What is Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol?
It's a Visa initiative, built with partners including Cloudflare and Microsoft. It aims to let merchants and payment networks verify that an AI agent is legitimate and acting on a real customer's behalf. Visa promotes it alongside its Intelligent Commerce platform to address authentication and fraud concerns.
