As businesses grapple with uncertainty surrounding consumer spending, fuel costs and geopolitical issues in 2026, artificial intelligence (AI) and adjusting consumer habits are fueling optimism for Visa, the company’s economic insights team reported in a mid-year update.
The Visa Business and Economic Insights division published findings based on proprietary data from Visa’s payment network and related activities. Among the highlights, analysts noted that they observed continued momentum in an AI-focused investment cycle across the U.S., Europe and China, even as other macro challenges persist.
Its outlook calls for a 2.4% year-over-year improvement in the global economy in 2026. In the meantime, companies are working to keep up with shifts in customer behavior as AI investment helps to “carry the economy,” according to Visa.
Visa’s economic outlook for the second half of 2026
“As digital commerce continues to reshape how people shop and pay, consumers are finding more ways to compare prices and stretch their budgets, helping to keep inflation in check,” said Wayne Best, chief economist at Visa. “We’re also seeing business investment rising sharply, with companies building out AI, clean energy and stronger supply chains at levels we haven’t seen since 2010 — a trend that is helping support global growth.”
Although Visa noted that rising costs have put pressure on household budgets and spending, it characterized discretionary spending as “relatively steady.”
At the same time, Visa expects consumers to continue to benefit from digital commerce by leveraging tools and platforms to find cost-effective alternatives with improving efficiency. In that context, the company noted that it saw “stronger price competition and lower inflation” in markets “with higher online penetration.”
The perspective supports Visa’s view that agentic commerce will be a significant driver of growth. The company is already working with OpenAI on agent-led payments, among other efforts.
AI’s role in global economy
Looking ahead, Visa anticipates that AI demand globally will continue to “lend support to growth,” at least for the time being.
In the meantime, even if businesses fail to fully realize productivity improvements using AI-powered technology, Visa’s analysts still assessed that redesigned business processes occurring as a result of AI investments will enable better productivity in the long term.
Notably, the report’s authors asserted that “measuring the costs and the benefits of this adoption is missed in conventional measures of output.” Instead, they believe that “valuable intangible assets” are being created along the way as processes improve. And as that occurs, productivity may still appear flat or weaker, in Visa’s view.
Moreover, Visa interpreted that a “recent hardware spending suggests that a wave of complementary investment in intangibles — non-physical assets like software and patent — is likely to follow.”
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