Google unveiled a new standard for payments made by artificial intelligence (AI) agents, enlisting more than 60 financial and technology companies globally to help shape the system.
The Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) is designed to let AI assistants buy goods or book services on behalf of users, while assuring merchants and banks that the transactions are properly authorised.
Partners include Ant International, Adyen, American Express, Coinbase, Mastercard, PayPal, and Trip.com, as well as Southeast Asia’s ecosystem players such as Shopee, Lazada, Razer, Garena, Airwallex, Fiuu and Zalora.
Today’s payment systems assume a human is clicking “buy” on a trusted website. But as AI agents increasingly act on their own, a common standard is needed to address questions of authorisation, authenticity and accountability.
At the core of AP2 are digital contracts called Mandates that record a user’s intent. If the task is delegated—such as snapping up concert tickets the moment they go on sale—an Intent Mandate sets conditions like price limits or timing. If a shopper approves a cart of items, a Cart Mandate locks in the exact goods and price. These contracts create a verifiable trail from intent to payment.
“AP2 is an open, shared protocol that provides a common language for secure, compliant transactions between agents and merchants, helping to prevent a fragmented ecosystem,” says Rao Surapaneni, vice president and general manager of Business Applications Platform at Google Cloud.
He adds: “It also supports different payment types – from credit and debit cards to stablecoins and real-time bank transfers. This helps ensure a consistent, secure, and scalable experience for users and merchants, while also providing financial institutions with the clarity they need to effectively manage risk”
Google says the system could enable new forms of commerce, such as personalised offers, coordinated travel bookings and even automated procurement for businesses. The company is also extending the framework into cryptocurrencies with an add-on known as x402, developed with Coinbase, MetaMask and the Ethereum Foundation.
Southeast Asia poised to benefit
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The protocol is believed to be particularly relevant for Southeast Asia, where the combined gross merchandise value from e-commerce, online travel, food delivery, transport, and online media reached US$263 billion in 2024.
“All of this activity is anchored on the ability to initiate and complete transactions. AP2 establishes the core building blocks for secure transactions that will drive further growth, creating clear opportunities for the industry—including networks, issuers, merchants, and end users—to innovate on adjacent areas like seamless agent authorisation. We’re committed to evolving this protocol in an open, collaborative process and invite the entire payments and technology community to build this future with us,” says Mark Micallef, Google Cloud’s managing director for Southeast Asia.
AP2 builds on Google’s earlier Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol, which defines how AI agents communicate with each other, and the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which governs how they access information. Together, these create the underlying architecture for the “agent economy,” with AP2 serving as the payments layer.
