TLDR: Cloudflare has announced strategic partnerships with Visa, Mastercard, and American Express to establish authentication standards for ‘agentic commerce,’ an emerging sector where AI software agents conduct transactions on behalf of users. This initiative, centered around Cloudflare’s Web Bot Auth protocol and Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol, aims to ensure secure, transparent, and trusted interactions in the rapidly evolving AI shopping landscape.
San Francisco-based connectivity cloud firm Cloudflare, Inc. (NYSE: NET) has unveiled significant collaborations with leading payment networks Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. The partnerships, announced on October 14, 2025, are designed to build a robust authentication layer for the burgeoning ‘agentic commerce’ economy, where autonomous AI software agents will increasingly handle shopping and payment processes for humans.
Agentic commerce represents a new frontier in online transactions, enabling AI agents to autonomously search, negotiate, and purchase goods or services. This could range from booking travel to managing subscriptions, often utilizing digital assets, stablecoins, and on-chain protocols for settlement.
At the core of this initiative is Cloudflare’s Web Bot Auth standard, which allows merchants to authenticate AI shopping bots. Cloudflare collaborated with Visa to develop the ‘Trusted Agent Protocol,’ integrating this standard to help merchants securely engage with AI shopping agents. Mastercard and American Express are also adopting similar integrations, incorporating Web Bot Auth into their respective agentic commerce frameworks, such as Visa Intelligent Commerce and Mastercard Agent Pay.
Stephanie Cohen, Cloudflare’s Chief Strategy Officer, emphasized the company’s vision, stating, “The future of commerce is agentic, and Cloudflare is building the trusted foundation for it. With our global network, we’re uniquely positioned to enable trust protocols that allow AI agents to transact safely.” Jack Forestell, Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Visa, highlighted the necessity of this collaboration, noting that a new era of commerce demands trust, transparency, security, and industry-wide cooperation as AI agents begin to transact on behalf of consumers. He added that the protocol helps merchants avoid the dilemma of choosing between blocking bots and serving customers. Jorn Lambert, Chief Product Officer at Mastercard, echoed this sentiment, stating that the partnership simplifies agent verification for merchants and ensures a scalable, secure, and widely adopted unified approach to agentic commerce. Luke Gebb, EVP & Head of Global Innovation at American Express, confirmed plans to utilize Cloudflare’s Web Bot Auth to assist merchants in identifying trusted agents and delivering a secure agentic commerce experience.
This strategic move aligns with Cloudflare’s broader vision for machine-to-machine payments. The company recently announced plans for its NET Dollar stablecoin and, in partnership with Coinbase, launched the x402 Foundation to standardize agent payment protocols. The goal is to create infrastructure for AI agents to gain financial autonomy, requiring programmable money that can move instantly and securely online.
The initiative also addresses critical challenges in agentic commerce, such as distinguishing between legitimate AI agents and malicious bots, while maintaining a seamless customer experience. Beyond the major card networks, early collaborators providing feedback on this framework include Adyen, Checkout.com, Circle, Fiserv, Microsoft, Nuvei, Shopify, Webflow, and Worldpay, indicating a broad industry effort to define standards for secure, autonomous transactions.
Also Read:
- Visa Unveils Trusted Agent Protocol to Secure AI-Driven Commerce
- Mastercard Unveils Agentic Token Framework to Fortify AI-Driven Commerce
Cloudflare, a technology powerhouse with a market capitalization of $77.56 billion, has demonstrated impressive financial performance, with year-to-date returns exceeding 106%, gross profit margins of 76%, and revenue growth of 27% year-over-year. The company’s stock is currently trading near its 52-week high of $230, with a strong current ratio of 5.14. The Trusted Agent Protocol is expected to be introduced to developers and payment processors in early 2026, following testing within select commerce platforms.
