Google has introduced the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), an open protocol designed to securely address the challenges of having AI agents make payments on behalf of humans. AP2 can be used as an extension of the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol and Model Context Protocol (MCP). “In concert with industry rules and standards, it establishes a payment-agnostic framework for users, merchants, and payments providers to transact with confidence across all types of payment methods,” explains Google, listing American Express, Coinbase, Etsy, Intuit, Mastercard, PayPal and Salesforce among 60 collaborators that provided development input.

“Imagine a world where autonomous agents handle everything from snagging limited-edition sneakers the moment they drop to making sure your pantry is always stocked, all while maintaining your privacy and security,” writes Geeky Gadgets, noting that in addition to repeat purchases and time sensitive transactions use cases also include price monitoring,

“While the current crop of AI agents can browse the internet for flights or help enterprises compare potential product providers, they still typically stop short of going through with a purchase or transaction — certainly not without getting a user’s express, manual approval,” explains VentureBeat.

“AI agents are capable of transacting on behalf of users, which creates a need to establish a common foundation to securely authenticate, validate, and convey an agent’s authority to transact,” according to a Google Cloud blog post, citing three agentic transaction issues AP2 addresses:

• Authorization: Proving that a user gave an agent the specific authority to make a particular purchase.
• Authenticity: Enabling a merchant to be sure that an agent’s request accurately reflects the user’s true intent.
• Accountability: Determining accountability if a fraudulent or incorrect transaction occurs.

The open-source protocol is available for download at GitHub.

The hope is “to attract the involvement of the ‘entire payments and technology community,’ as well as standards bodies to ensure agentic payments are regulatory compliant,” reports SiliconANGLE.

“A standard would provide the necessary guarantee that requests to pay for something are legitimate and offer guidelines if something does go wrong,” addss VentureBeat, noting that while AP2 is available for developers, it will be a while before it’s implemented in the real world.

Although PayPal appears to have developers at work integrating AP2, “It will likely take some time before consumers and enterprises are comfortable with humans being barely involved in transactions,” VB opines.

Related:
PayPal and Google Seal Partnership to Enable AI-Led Commerce, Bloomberg, 9/17/25
Google Unveils Open-Source Protocol for AI Payments with Stablecoin Support, Cointelegraph, 9/16/25
No More Links, No More Scrolling — The Browser Is Becoming an AI Agent, VentureBeat, 7/28/25