Visa plugs its payment network into ChatGPT, letting AI agents shop and pay for users
Source: AP
Betting that people will soon grow more comfortable having artificial intelligence agents shop for groceries, plane tickets or diapers on their behalf, payments giant Visa said Wednesday that it has embedded its payment network inside of ChatGPT, empowering the chatbot to independently shop and complete transactions.
It means AI agents can not only recommend products but complete the purchase on the user’s behalf at potentially any merchant that accepts Visa. The payment network’s previous attempts at this technological leap were confined to a single retailer or a small set of enrolled merchants.
It is not OpenAI’s first attempt at e-commerce. The company late last year announced Instant Checkout, which allowed ChatGPT to scour the internet for a specific item like a digital personal shopper. But the process was prone to errors and was not widely adopted by merchants due to the fee that OpenAI was charging merchants. The company retired Instant Checkout in March.
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Allowing AI agents to buy products on behalf of a consumer raises concerns for both banks and retailers. A customer could overspend, or the agent buys the wrong item, or the customer claims they did not authorize that transaction. Banks have been concerned about potential fraud claims that could occur when an agent uses a bank customer’s credit or debit card.
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Read more: https://apnews.com/article/visa-chatgpt-openai-shopping-mastercard-d769dec86344cb4977c98789e8ec492f
A Visa exec quoted in the story says this will require "a whole different level of trust."
Not trust. Stupidity.
= new reply since forum marked as read
just thinking about how fast things have changed in just my lifetime 
For now, we'll need to link our Visa cards to ChatGPT (not happening here). But it's only a matter of time before we have no choice. This whole thing stinks. 
more power to you! 
I am all for choices.