Contemplating Sharing Credit Card Details with AI for Grocery Purchases? Visa Encourages Such Transactions.
AI Shopping: Your Budget, Your Time, Visa's AI
Get ready for a sci-fi shopping experience! Visa is planning to let AI chatbots manage your credit cards, grabbing groceries, clothes, or flight tickets for you. If you've got your preferences and budget set, these AI buddies will do the shopping for you, according to the Associated Press.
Visa is teaming up with AI gurus like OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, and Mistral to connect these AI systems to Visa's payment network. Jack Forestell, Visa's chief product and strategy officer, thinks this could be as game-changing as the dawn of e-commerce itself.
"Soon, you'll have AI agents browsing, selecting, purchasing, and managing your shopping. Visa is leading the charge for a new commerce era," Forestell said.
This initiative, called the "Visa Intelligent Commerce," also includes partners like IBM, online payment company Stripe, and phone-maker Samsung.
"Introducing Visa Intelligent Commerce – a scheme to empower AI agents to deliver tailored shopping experiences for consumers, at scale," Visa announced. "From browsing to purchase management, this program will arm AI agents to handle the shopping process smoothly."
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Earlier Attempts
This idea isn't new – just last month, Albert Saniger, founder of the AI shopping app Nate, was accused of fraud. The problem? The company wasn't as automated as advertised.call centre employees from the Philippines were handling the purchases manually.
Saniger launched Nate in 2018, attracting over $50 million in funding from investors like Coatue and Forerunner Ventures. He marketed his product as a "magic shopping app" that simplified online shopping with a single tap – but the app's automation rate, according to the Department of Justice, was essentially zero.
- Visa's AI chatbots, the forerunners of a new commerce era, could potentially manage flight tickets, groceries, and other purchases, similar to the functionality proposed by the now-discredited AI shopping app Nate.
- The Visa Intelligent Commerce initiative, partnering with IBM, Stripe, Samsung, and AI gurus, aims to enable AI agents to provide streamlined shopping experiences, automatically browsing, selecting, and managing purchases, an ambitious endeavor compared to earlier attempts.
- The foundering of Nate, an AI shopping app accused of fraud for misrepresenting its automation capabilities, highlights the significant role of artificial intelligence and technology in commerce, a domain where Visa is striving to be the forerunner.
- Just as Visa's AI chatbots might revolutionize commerce as much as e-commerce did, the adventure of online shopping seems to be unfolding, thanks to the integration of artificial intelligence, a realm where finances, business, and technology converge.
