Agentic commerce security is becoming a central concern for digital merchants as autonomous AI agents increasingly browse, compare, and transact across online storefronts. A new collaboration between Akamai Technologies and Visa is aimed at addressing identity verification, user recognition, and security challenges associated with this emerging commerce model.

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 say the goal is to give merchants stronger identity, authentication, and fraud controls as AI agents take on more active roles in commerce workflows.

New challenges driven by autonomous AI agents

As AI agents begin interacting directly with commerce platforms, merchants face a range of operational and security issues. These include distinguishing legitimate agent-driven activity from malicious automation, authenticating the agent itself, identifying the consumer behind the interaction, and ensuring transactions remain secure.

According to Akamai, the absence of a trusted framework could reduce merchant visibility into personalisation, weaken security controls, and erode direct relationships with consumers as agent-mediated interactions scale.

Real-time visibility at the edge

The companies say their combined approach provides merchants with real-time visibility into AI agent activity before it reaches sensitive backend systems. By applying behavioural intelligence and user recognition at the edge, merchants can differentiate trusted AI agents from malicious bots at scale.

Akamai argues this capability will become increasingly important as agent-driven commerce volumes grow and the attack surface expands.

Addressing the dual-identity challenge

Patrick Sullivan, Chief Technology Officer, Security Strategy at Akamai Technologies, said trust and recognition are fundamental to agentic commerce.

“The promise of agentic commerce hinges on recognition—the ability to trust an agent acting on someone’s behalf,” Sullivan said. He added that integrating Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol with Akamai’s threat intelligence and user recognition is intended to address what he described as the dual-identity challenge: verifying both the AI agent and the consumer it represents.

Trust as a prerequisite for scale

Visa echoed the need for trust as agentic commerce develops. Jack Forestell, Chief Product and Strategy Officer at Visa, said agent-driven interactions can only scale if participants across the ecosystem can trust the agents involved.

He noted that the collaboration is designed to provide merchants with real-time intelligence that supports AI-driven experiences while managing fraud and security risks.

Rising bot traffic increases urgency

The companies pointed to findings from Akamai’s 2025 Digital Fraud and Abuse Report to underline the scale of the problem. According to the report, AI-powered bot traffic grew by 300 percent over the past year, with the commerce sector recording more than 25 billion AI bot requests in just two months.

Akamai believes this growth significantly expands the attack surface, making verifiable identity and intent critical requirements for digital commerce platforms.

How the Trusted Agent Protocol fits

Visa said its Trusted Agent Protocol is designed to authenticate AI agents using Visa credentials and ensure they operate within defined parameters. The protocol allows agents to communicate their purpose, such as browsing or initiating payments, while providing merchants visibility into the consumer authorising the transaction.

Visa claims the protocol can be adopted with minimal infrastructure or user experience changes, enabling merchants to support agentic commerce without compromising security.

Three focus areas for merchants

According to Akamai and Visa, the collaboration aims to support merchants in three 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 designed to reinforce these processes by validating agent authenticity and detecting anomalous behaviour before fraud or abuse affects transactions.

Preparing digital commerce for agent-driven interactions

Akamai noted that nine of the world’s top ten retailers already use its platform to support and secure digital commerce operations at scale. As agentic commerce evolves, agentic commerce security is likely to become a defining factor in how merchants manage trust, risk, and customer relationships in AI-driven digital environments.