The global technical body EMVCo has officially unveiled a draft framework designed to standardize the architecture of agentic payments, a burgeoning sector where artificial intelligence-driven agents execute financial transactions on behalf of consumers. As AI agents increasingly transition from passive digital assistants to active economic participants, the challenge of managing consumer intent—and the associated liability—has become a focal point for financial institutions, merchants, and technology providers. The proposed framework seeks to establish a universal, interoperable foundation to ensure that when an AI makes a purchase, the transaction is secure, verified, and transparent across the global payment ecosystem.
The core of the proposal introduces the concept of Intent Services, a centralized, shared layer that allows various participants in the payment chain to register, verify, and update consumer-authorized intents. By creating a unified state for these transactions, EMVCo aims to resolve the ambiguity that arises in complex AI-led scenarios, such as recurring subscriptions, multi-step procurement processes, or cumulative budget management, where a transaction’s validity may need to be tracked over an extended duration.
The Rise of Agentic Commerce and the Intent Dilemma
Agentic commerce represents a paradigm shift in how consumers interact with the digital economy. Unlike traditional e-commerce, where a human user manually navigates a storefront and completes a checkout process, agentic commerce utilizes autonomous or semi-autonomous software to act on the user’s behalf. Whether it is an AI agent booking travel, managing household expenses, or sourcing specialized goods, these entities must be granted some level of agency over the user’s payment credentials.
The primary friction point identified by EMVCo is the management of "shared intent states." In a traditional transaction, intent is binary: a user clicks "buy," and the payment proceeds. In agentic scenarios, intent is often fluid. An AI might be authorized to spend up to $500 per month on groceries, or to negotiate a service contract that concludes days after the initial interaction. If multiple entities—such as the merchant, the bank, and the AI provider—do not share a common understanding of what was authorized, the risk of fraud, unauthorized overspending, or system failure increases exponentially.
EMVCo’s framework addresses this by providing a common language for intent. The Intent Services layer acts as a ledger of sorts, ensuring that every participant in the transaction lifecycle has a consistent view of what the consumer authorized, the current status of that authorization, and how much of the allocated budget or service allowance remains.
Chronology and Development of the Framework
The development of this framework is the result of intensive collaboration within EMVCo’s dedicated Agentic Payments Task Force. The organization has been actively mapping the technical requirements for AI-driven financial interactions since early 2025.
- Q1 2025: EMVCo identifies the "Agentic Gap" in existing payment standards, noting that current security protocols (such as 3-D Secure) were built for human-centric interfaces.
- Q2 2025: Formation of the Agentic Payments Task Force, bringing together representatives from card networks, financial institutions, and security technology firms.
- Q3 2025: Initial cross-industry dialogues held with organizations including the FIDO Alliance and the OpenID Foundation to determine how digital identity and wallet standards could integrate with autonomous agents.
- September 2026: Release of the draft framework for public comment. The current window for industry feedback is scheduled to close on September 30, 2026.
Bridging Cryptographic Certainty with Practical Coordination
A common misconception in the industry is that cryptographic proofs—such as "Verifiable Intent"—are sufficient to solve the complexities of AI payments. While these technologies are essential for verifying that a consumer did indeed authorize an agent to act, they do not inherently solve the coordination problem. A cryptographic token confirms authorization, but it does not necessarily inform a merchant’s system how much of a dynamic budget has been exhausted or whether a specific purchase fits within the user’s predefined constraints.
EMVCo’s approach is additive. By integrating Intent Services, the organization is creating a coordination point that complements existing security standards. The framework defines specific ecosystem roles—such as the Intent Issuer, the Intent Verifier, and the Intent User—and outlines the precise data fields required to maintain lifecycle and state information. This structure ensures that even as an agent acts on a consumer’s behalf over weeks or months, the transaction remains anchored to a verified and observable intent state.
Implications for the Financial Ecosystem
The impact of this framework extends far beyond the immediate technical specifications. If adopted, it could set a global standard for how AI agents interact with existing payment infrastructures like EMV 3-D Secure (3DS) and Payment Tokenization. By providing a clear methodology for identifying and signaling AI-led transactions, the framework helps issuers and merchants refine their risk management models.
The inclusion of potential "Know Your Agent" (KYA) capabilities highlights the long-term vision of the project. Similar to "Know Your Customer" (KYC) regulations, KYA would allow payment networks to verify the identity and attributes of the AI agent itself. This would provide merchants with critical metadata—such as the purpose of the agent, the developer behind the model, and the agent’s specific permissions—before a transaction is authorized. Such transparency is a prerequisite for widespread consumer adoption of autonomous shopping technologies.
Industry Collaboration and Future Outlook
EMVCo’s strategy is heavily reliant on ecosystem-wide consensus. By partnering with the FIDO Alliance, the OpenID Foundation, the OpenWallet Foundation, and the W3C, EMVCo is ensuring that its standards do not exist in a silo. These organizations represent the vanguard of digital identity and decentralized finance, and their input is vital to ensuring that agentic payments are as portable as they are secure.
Junya Tanaka, Chair of the EMVCo Executive Committee, emphasized the necessity of this global interoperability. "Card-based agentic payments require a foundation that consumers, merchants, and issuers can all trust," Tanaka noted. "This framework provides a consistent approach for establishing and communicating intent alongside payment-related information, which is a fundamental requirement for scaling these technologies."
As the industry moves toward a future where AI agents manage a significant percentage of consumer retail activity, the ability to maintain trust and security will determine the success or failure of these platforms. If the EMVCo framework is widely adopted, it will provide the "rails" upon which autonomous commerce can safely run, turning the current wild-west of AI-purchasing into a regulated, transparent, and efficient marketplace.
Conclusion and Call for Feedback
The draft framework is currently available for public review, and EMVCo is actively soliciting feedback from stakeholders across the global payment spectrum. The deadline for submitting comments is September 30, 2026. Given the rapid advancement of generative AI and its integration into consumer applications, the finalization of this standard is expected to be a high-priority item for the financial services industry throughout the remainder of 2026 and into 2027.
For financial institutions, the framework offers a roadmap to mitigate the risks associated with autonomous transactions. For technology companies building AI agents, it provides a standard interface to ensure their products are compatible with the global payment ecosystem. Ultimately, the success of the framework will be measured by its ability to balance the need for autonomous innovation with the non-negotiable requirements of security, accountability, and user protection. As the deadline for comments approaches, the industry’s response will likely signal the pace at which agentic payments transition from a niche technological experiment to a standard feature of the modern digital economy.
