Visa, BILL and Billtrust have launched a live pilot in which an authorised BILL AI agent completes invoice payments the buyer has already approved, through Billtrust suppliers' payment portals. The agent is identified through Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol and uses tokenised card credentials, with no need to share portal logins. This authentication can replace CAPTCHAs and other bot-blocking checks. The agent does not decide on payments; it only executes those already approved.
What it means: In business-to-business payments, one of the last manual steps is logging into a supplier's portal to key in card details. These portals are built to block automated programs, so even when a payment has been approved, an employee still has to complete it. The pilot shows a practical model for agentic commerce in B2B: the agent is recognised by identity, carries a limited mandate tied to a specific invoice, and everything is logged. That is more realistic than scenarios in which an assistant shops freely on behalf of consumers, because approvals and controls already exist in accounts payable processes. For suppliers, the benefit is faster collection and fewer errors. For banks and card networks, it is a chance to move payments that today go by cheque or bank transfer onto cards, with the fees that come with them. In Europe, where PSD2 strong customer authentication applies, such a model would need adapting, but the logic of identifying the agent and limiting its authority will be central to European rules on agent-initiated payments too.
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