Akamai Technologies and Visa have formed a strategic partnership aimed at strengthening identity verification, authentication and fraud prevention as autonomous AI agents increasingly interact with online merchants.
The companies said the collaboration integrates Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol with Akamai’s edge-based behavioral intelligence, user recognition and bot mitigation capabilities. They designed the combined to help merchants identify legitimate AI agents, verify the consumers those agents represent and prevent fraud before transactions reach sensitive commerce and payment systems.
The initiative targets what the companies describe as a growing gap in ecommerce security as AI agents begin browsing, comparing and purchasing goods on behalf of consumers. Automation has long been part of digital commerce. However, agent-driven interactions introduce new challenges around impersonation, fraud and loss of merchant control over customer relationships.
“Agentic commerce is unlocking an entirely new wave of digital interactions, but it can only scale if every player in the ecosystem can trust the agents participating in it,” said Jack Forestell, Visa’s chief product, and strategy officer.
Visa and Akamai partner on fraud prevention for agentic commerce
Under the partnership, Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol provides a framework for authenticating AI agents and signaling their intent, such as whether an agent is browsing or initiating payment. Akamai supplements that signal with real-time network, behavioral and threat intelligence at the edge. Its technology allows merchants to evaluate agents activity before they reach checkout or backend systems.
Patrick Sullivan, Akamai’s chief technology officer for security strategy, said merchants must now validate two identities at once:
- The AI agent.
- The consumer behind it.
“The promise of agentic commerce hinges on recognition — the fundamental ability to trust an agent acting on someone’s behalf,” Sullivan said. “We prove both who the agent is and, critically, who it represents.”
The companies said the integration allows merchants to:
- Differentiate trusted AI agents from malicious bots.
- Preserve user context for fraud detection and personalization.
- Secure payment interactions without disrupting existing checkout flows.
They designed the system to require minimal infrastructure changes, easing adoption for merchants operating on a scale.
Timing of Visa and Akamai partnership
The announcement comes as AI-driven traffic accelerates across ecommerce platforms. According to Akamai’s 2025 Digital Fraud and Abuse Report, AI-powered bot traffic increased 300% over the past year. The commerce sector alone recorded more than 25 billion AI bot requests during a two-month period, underscoring the growing pressure on identity and fraud systems.
Visa said Trusted Agent Protocol is built on standard web infrastructure and enables AI agents to:
- Transmit proof that they are authorized for a specific shopping task.
- Provide visibility into the consumer involved in the transaction.
- Securely pass payment credentials through a merchant’s preferred checkout process.
The protocol is designed to scale across Visa’s global acceptance network, which includes approximately 175 million merchant locations.
Nine of the world’s 10 largest retailers rely on Akamai to power and secure digital commerce operations, the company said. By extending those protections to agent-driven interactions, Akamai and Visa aim to make AI agents viable participants in mainstream commerce without increasing fraud risk or eroding merchant control.
Visa’s Forestell said the companies intend for the collaboration to help merchants adopt AI-driven shopping experiences with greater confidence.
“By deploying Trusted Agent Protocol with Akamai, we’re delivering the real-time intelligence merchants need to support AI-driven experiences without introducing new risk,” he said.
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