GoKawiilOnly 24% of US adults would feel comfortable letting AI make a purchase for them, a study shows. the_burtons/Moment/Getty Images
Imagine a world where AI can book a flight and order new luggage on your credit card. Don't spend too long imagining; we're already living in it.
Visa said this week that it's partnering with OpenAI to allow you to make Visa payments on its ChatGPT AI chatbot. Visa announced the news at Visa Payments Forum 2026 on Wednesday in San Francisco. Visa plans to use tokenization, which replaces your 16-digit card number with a random string of numbers to safeguard your information when you pay online.
The partnership is a part of Visa Intelligent Commerce, the payment processor's platform for agentic commerce. The goal is for OpenAI and Visa to join forces to let ChatGPT initiate and complete transactions -- without your help. How safe is that?
Creating an entirely new layer to the digital payment landscape can create many problems, says Daniella Flores, an AI and machine learning technical writer, financial and career writer, and former CNET Money Expert Review Board member. "In any situation, not just this one, the more parties that have your payment credentials, the more opportunity there is for data breaches and theft," Flores said in an email to CNET.
How will ChatGPT work with Visa?
A Visa spokesperson said in an email to CNET that the goal for Visa's OpenAI partnership with Visa is to make shopping easier and more efficient while making sure consumers still decide when, where and how their money is spent.
"Consumers remain fully in control," the spokesperson said. "AI agents can only initiate purchases within clearly defined, user-set parameters, such as spending limits, approved merchants, or required approvals."
Visa said in a press release that it's planning for other AI-driven tools and features, like an Agent Score rating system for merchants to evaluate whether or not their website is ready for AI commerce. There's also an Agentic Directory coming for merchants to know which AI agents to trust for transactions, including Visa-verified agents and merchants. The company also plans to use an AI model to improve fraud detection.
We'll have to wait and see when this feature rolls out, where it's available first and what its limitations are.
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