AI will be able to choose and pay for our online purchases

Imagine this: You need to stock your fridge. You make a shopping list, which you then deliver to a dedicated AI. It will then buy everything you need and pay for it. Another example: you want a flight from Geneva to London on a specific date. The same AI will then compare offers and buy you a ticket that fits your budget. Without you lifting a finger.

These scenarios are becoming reality with Visa. The American credit card giant has been rolling out a solution in the US since early May that allows AI agents to make secure payments on behalf of consumers. This program, dubbed " Visa Intelligent Commerce ," is to be expanded to Europe and Switzerland this year, according to the German-language Tamedia newspapers on Tuesday.

In concrete terms, the user will delegate the search, selection, and payment of products to AI, without manual validation at each stage. The user will simply set general instructions, the spending limit, and decide whether or not to validate purchases.

Visa claims to be collaborating with several AI players, including Anthropic, IBM, Microsoft, Mistral AI, OpenAI, Perplexity, and Samsung. These partnerships aim to maintain a high level of security. But for now, the project has generated suspicion. When contacted, neither e-commerce giant Brack, nor Swisscard or UBS would comment on their interest. Only Digitec Galaxus says it is monitoring the project, while highlighting legal and technical uncertainties, particularly regarding data security.

But Swiss online retail giants are realizing that Internet users are increasingly using ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini to search for products. They are therefore seeking to improve their visibility in "AI commerce" and make their product data accessible to AI.