Cleverbridge has completed what it describes as France’s first live passkey-authenticated agentic payment, using Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol, Visa Payment Passkey and a Revolut-issued consumer card. The transaction moves agentic commerce beyond controlled demonstrations toward a live checkout model in which an approved AI agent can initiate a purchase while the payment remains authenticated through established financial infrastructure.

Cleverbridge has completed a live agent-initiated payment in France using Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol and Payment Passkey, providing an early example of how AI agents could eventually participate in commercial transactions without removing established payment authentication and authorization controls.

The transaction was conducted as part of a pilot between Cleverbridge, Visa and Revolut. According to Cleverbridge, Visa’s test AI agent, My Agent, initiated the purchase. Cleverbridge identified the agent through Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol before allowing the transaction to proceed through its checkout environment.

The payment was then authenticated using a Visa Payment Passkey, while Revolut authorized the transaction on a French consumer retail card.

The architecture is significant because agentic commerce introduces a different set of requirements from conventional e-commerce. In a traditional checkout, the consumer directly selects a product, reviews the purchase and authenticates the payment. With an AI agent involved, software can potentially discover products, make selections and initiate transactions on the consumer’s behalf.

That creates a question that payment networks and merchants need to resolve: how can a merchant distinguish an authorized AI agent from an untrusted automated system, and how can the consumer’s intent be authenticated when the person is not directly interacting with every step of the checkout?

Cleverbridge’s transaction attempts to address both issues through separate layers of identity and payment authentication.

The merchant recognized the AI agent using Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol, while the payment itself was authenticated through a Visa Payment Passkey. Revolut remained the issuer and authorized the transaction through the existing card-payment infrastructure.

Visa has said its passkey approach is intended to establish purchase intent and reduce risks associated with agent errors and potential AI-driven chargebacks. Those are company claims, but they illustrate a central challenge for agentic payments: authentication needs to cover not only who is paying but also whether an AI agent is acting with legitimate authorization.

The transaction was powered by Visa Intelligent Commerce, which runs on Visa’s existing payment infrastructure.

That integration is important for the emerging agentic-payments market. Rather than creating an entirely separate payment rail for AI agents, networks are attempting to extend existing authorization, authentication and card infrastructure to accommodate transactions initiated by software.

Cleverbridge said it had previously enabled Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol and Agentic Directory and had begun processing agent-initiated transactions in its own environment. The latest transaction brings the technology into a live consumer payment context involving a card issued by Revolut.

For merchants, the development could eventually reduce the technical burden of supporting agentic commerce. Cleverbridge said support for approved AI agents is being built directly into the commerce environment it operates, rather than requiring each software and technology company using the platform to develop its own agentic-payment integration.

That model fits a broader trend in embedded commerce infrastructure, where payment capabilities are increasingly incorporated into third-party platforms and applications.

The implications extend beyond software purchases. If AI agents eventually become capable of making purchases across travel, retail, financial services and business procurement, merchants will need infrastructure for identifying agents, determining their authorization and applying transaction controls.

Payment networks also face a corresponding challenge. An AI agent can make transactions faster and potentially more frequent, but automated purchasing introduces questions around consent, liability, fraud, refunds and disputes.

Passkeys could provide one part of that framework by authenticating the payment without requiring a traditional password or one-time authentication interaction. However, payment authentication alone does not solve the broader question of what an AI agent was authorized to purchase or how much autonomy it should have.

The Cleverbridge transaction therefore represents an infrastructure test as much as a payment milestone. The merchant needs to recognize the agent, the payment network needs to authenticate the transaction, and the issuer must authorize the payment.

The company is continuing to work with Visa through its Agentic Ready programme as the two organizations explore how verified AI agents can be recognized and governed in live commerce.

Agentic commerce remains at an early stage, and widespread adoption will depend on standards for identity, authorization, security and dispute management. But the Cleverbridge transaction demonstrates a possible model: AI agents can initiate purchases while existing payment networks and financial institutions remain responsible for authentication and authorization.

That division of responsibility could become increasingly important as digital commerce shifts from consumers operating websites and applications directly toward AI systems acting on their behalf.

Market Landscape

Agentic payments are emerging as a new layer of digital commerce in which AI agents can discover products, select services and initiate transactions for consumers or businesses.

The competitive landscape includes Visa, Mastercard, banks, fintech payment providers, commerce platforms and technology companies developing AI agents. The central infrastructure challenge is establishing agent identity, consumer authorization, payment authentication and liability without creating a parallel payments system.

Cleverbridge’s pilot illustrates an emerging model in which AI-agent identity is handled separately from payment authentication and issuer authorization. That could help connect Digital Payments Platforms, Embedded Finance Infrastructure and Financial Technology with the broader development of agentic AI.

Top Insights

• Cleverbridge completed a live French agentic payment using Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol, Visa Payment Passkey and a Revolut-issued consumer card.
• Visa’s test AI agent initiated the purchase, while Cleverbridge verified the agent before allowing checkout to continue.
• The payment used existing Visa infrastructure rather than requiring a separate payment rail designed exclusively for AI agents.
• Passkey authentication adds a payment-security layer, but agent authorization and transaction governance remain separate challenges for merchants.
• The transaction provides an early example of how AI agents could participate in commerce while banks and payment networks retain control.

Get in touch with our fintech expert