Visa and Artemis outline AI agent payments as x402 reaches $150 million volume

Visa and Artemis said AI agent payments are moving from theory toward practical use in two distinct segments: macro-commerce for tasks such as bookings and subscriptions, and micro-commerce for high-frequency, low-value transactions typically below $1. In their July 16 report, "Agentic Payments from the Ground Up," the firms said traditional card networks remain effective for larger consumer-facing purchases, while stablecoins are better suited to machine-to-machine micropayments because newer blockchain networks can settle at costs measured in fractions of a cent. The report said future agentic commerce is likely to combine both payment methods within a single workflow rather than force a choice between them. It also pointed to a blurring boundary between card-based and crypto-native systems as Visa-backed initiatives add stablecoin support and blockchain projects adopt more trust and verification features. Earlier this year, Visa introduced Visa Intelligent Commerce, an Agentic Directory and Agent Score tools, announced a partnership with OpenAI, joined the Open Standard consortium planning the Open USD stablecoin, and said its annualized stablecoin settlement run rate had reached about $7 billion, with more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs live or under development. The report also identified liability attribution, chargebacks and dispute handling as key unresolved issues as AI agents begin completing transactions independently.