In this insightful conversation, Rubail Birwadker, Visa’s global head of growth products and strategic partnerships, discusses how generative AI is poised to revolutionize shopping and commerce. He explains that commerce has evolved over the past 35 years from online commerce focused on access, to mobile commerce emphasizing accessibility, and now to an “agentic” era centered on autonomy and personalization. Generative AI, particularly large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, is seen as the technology that can finally enable conversational commerce, where consumers interact with chatbots or AI agents to discover, select, and purchase products seamlessly.
Rubail emphasizes that chatbots and AI agents will become an additional channel for commerce rather than replacing existing ones. Just as online and mobile commerce expanded the ways people shop without eliminating physical stores, AI-driven conversational commerce will coexist with traditional platforms. These AI agents can leverage deep personalization by understanding user preferences, payment methods, and social context, making the discovery and purchasing process more intuitive and efficient. He shares a personal example of planning a family trip, illustrating how AI can assist in the entire discovery journey—from choosing destinations and flights to selecting hotels—before the actual transaction occurs.
Visa’s role in this evolving landscape is to ensure that payments made through AI agents are secure, seamless, and consistent worldwide. Rubail highlights Visa’s extensive work with platforms, merchants, and banks to maintain trust and reduce fraud in agentic commerce. He explains that Visa is developing technologies like tokenization, biometric authentication, and enhanced payment instructions to verify purchase intent and protect consumers. These measures aim to minimize fraud risks while balancing user convenience, ensuring that AI-driven transactions are as safe as traditional ones.
The conversation also touches on Visa’s “trusted agent protocol,” designed to help merchants differentiate between good and bad bots and facilitate AI agents’ ability to transact on behalf of consumers. This protocol allows merchants to recognize AI agents with verified payment credentials and consumer identifiers, enabling better product recommendations and smoother transactions. Rubail notes that while the infrastructure is still evolving, this approach leverages existing web technologies to support the growing presence of AI agents in commerce without requiring merchants to overhaul their systems completely.
Looking ahead, Rubail expresses strong confidence in the transformative potential of generative AI for commerce. He cites data showing exponential growth in AI-driven traffic to merchant websites and shares his personal experience using AI models extensively in daily life. While acknowledging that the pace and scale of adoption remain uncertain, he believes that AI-powered discovery and purchasing will become integral to how consumers shop. Visa is actively preparing for this future by collaborating across the industry to ensure that AI-enabled commerce is secure, personalized, and frictionless.
