Akamai Technologies has announced a strategic collaboration with Visa aimed at strengthening identity verification, user recognition and security controls for what the companies describe as the emerging era of agentic commerce. According to Akamai, the integration combines Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol with Akamai’s edge-based behavioural intelligence, user recognition, and bot and abuse protection capabilities.
The companies claim the joint solution is designed to provide merchants with stronger identity, authentication and fraud controls, enabling them to accommodate AI agents that browse, compare and transact on behalf of consumers within digital storefronts.
As autonomous AI agents increasingly interact with commerce platforms, Akamai notes that merchants are facing new operational and security challenges. These include distinguishing legitimate agent-driven traffic from malicious automation, authenticating the agent itself, identifying the end user behind the interaction, and ensuring transactions remain secure. Without a reliable trust framework, merchants risk losing visibility into personalisation, security controls and direct consumer relationships, the company believes.
According to the companies, the combination of Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol and Akamai’s edge-based behavioural intelligence provides merchants with real-time visibility into AI agent activity before it reaches sensitive backend systems. Akamai claims this approach allows merchants to differentiate trusted AI agents from malicious bots at scale, a requirement the company says is critical as agent-driven commerce volumes grow.
“The promise of agentic commerce hinges on recognition—the ability to trust an agent acting on someone’s behalf,” said Patrick Sullivan, Chief Technology Officer, Security Strategy at Akamai Technologies. Sullivan noted that by integrating Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol with Akamai’s user recognition and threat intelligence capabilities, the companies are attempting to address what he described as the “dual-identity challenge” in AI commerce—verifying both the agent and the consumer it represents.
Visa echoed similar views, arguing that trust will be a prerequisite for scaling agentic commerce. “Agentic commerce is unlocking a new wave of digital interactions, but it can only scale if every participant in the ecosystem can trust the agents involved,” said Jack Forestell, Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Visa. He added that the collaboration is intended to provide merchants with real-time intelligence to support AI-driven experiences while managing fraud and security risks.
The companies cited findings from Akamai’s 2025 Digital Fraud and Abuse Report to underline the scale of the challenge. According to the report, AI-powered bot traffic increased by 300% over the past year, with the commerce sector alone recording more than 25 billion AI bot requests over a two-month period. Akamai believes that as agent-generated traffic accelerates, the attack surface expands, making verifiable identity a critical requirement for digital commerce platforms.
Visa stated that its Trusted Agent Protocol is designed to help ensure AI agents using Visa credentials are authenticated and operating within defined parameters. The protocol leverages standard web infrastructure to allow agents to communicate their purpose—such as browsing or payment initiation—to merchants, while also providing visibility into the consumer authorising the transaction. Visa claims the protocol can be adopted with minimal infrastructure or user experience changes, enabling its global merchant network to support agentic commerce without compromising security.
According to Akamai and Visa, the collaboration aims to help merchants in three key areas: identifying legitimate AI agents and their intent, linking verified agents to the underlying consumer, and enabling secure and predictable payment interactions. Akamai said its edge-based protection layers are intended to reinforce these workflows by validating agent authenticity and detecting anomalous behaviour before fraud or abuse impacts transactions.
Akamai noted that nine of the world’s top ten retailers already rely on its platform to support and secure digital commerce operations. The company claims its infrastructure helps enterprises manage peak traffic, improve performance and protect online storefronts at global scale.
