Alipay launches payment tools for AI agents that shop for you
Chinese fintech giant looks to dominate the transaction layer of the emerging ‘agent economy’ as AI evolves to executing real-world tasks
The Hangzhou-based company on Tuesday launched a new suite of artificial intelligence payment tools, aiming to position its ubiquitous Alipay network as the foundational transaction infrastructure for an emerging wave of autonomous AI agents capable of shopping, booking services and completing payments on behalf of users.
The roll-out represented a “full-stack” AI solution designed to smooth how money flows among AI model developers, retail businesses and everyday consumers in the AI era, according to Ant Group.
As part of this ecosystem, the company introduced two flagship products.
The AI Wallet is a consumer-facing interface within the Alipay app designed to let users monitor, manage and authorise tasks carried out by AI agents before, during and after a transaction.
Meanwhile, Token Pay is a specialised business-to-business product engineered for AI model providers to seamlessly handle subscription models, in-agent token top-ups and complex micro-transactions.
“Alipay is building a new generation of AI payment services to accelerate the growth of the agentic commerce ecosystem,” said Cyril Han Xinyi, CEO of Ant Group. “Agents execute payments, while tokens carry value,” said Han at a Tuesday afternoon corporate conference, explaining the essence of AI Pay.