Tempo and Visa simultaneously unveil AI agent payment solutions
Users of AI agents gained access to innovative payment tools as both Visa and Stripe-supported Tempo introduced solutions enabling autonomous agent transactions on the internet.
The cryptocurrency division of Visa introduced a payment solution designed for artificial intelligence agents on Wednesday, coinciding with the launch of Tempo, a Stripe-supported blockchain, which debuted alongside its own protocol tailored for AI agents.
"Excited to share Visa CLI, the first experimental product from Visa Crypto Labs," Cuy Sheffield, the head of Visa Crypto Labs, posted to X on Wednesday.
According to a website dedicated to Visa CLI, which stands for command line interface where users enter commands to direct a program's actions, the solution provides an AI agent with "the ability to securely pay for what you need as you code."
The solution also indicated it enables "programmatic card payments without the pain of API keys." API keys may contain sensitive data that AI agents could inadvertently expose, creating potential security vulnerabilities.
This represents the most recent standard aimed at enabling AI agents to conduct online payments amid mounting excitement surrounding AI technology and stablecoins.
Coinbase introduced its x402 standard in May to enable agentic stablecoin transactions, which saw its latest integration by Sam Altman's World through a developer toolkit designed for AI agents that was released on Tuesday.
Stripe-backed Tempo blockchain goes live
Simultaneously, the Tempo blockchain, which received backing from payments giant Stripe, went live on mainnet on Wednesday, unveiling a payments protocol specifically designed for AI agents.
"Agents can already write code, coordinate services, retrieve data, and execute complex workflows across the internet. But as these systems become more capable, they increasingly need to transact," Tempo said.
Agent payments will soon overtake human payments on the internet. The Machine Payments Protocol is a new open standard co-authored by Stripe and Tempo. It's designed to be extensible and payment-method agnostic, already supporting stablecoins, cards, and more.
— Tempo (@tempo) March 18, 2026
The initiative also unveiled the Machine Payments Protocol, an open standard co-developed with Stripe, which the company characterized as offering "a standard way for agents and services to coordinate payments programmatically."
According to Tempo, the protocol "is designed to be rail-agnostic and extensible," highlighting that Visa had expanded support for the protocol across its card payments network while Stripe is providing support for "cards, wallets, and other payment methods."
Additionally, crypto fintech company Lightspark had extended support for the protocol via the Lightning Network for Bitcoin (BTC) payments.