Visa: Consumers, businesses grow in acceptance of AI agents
Consumers and businesses are becoming increasingly comfortable with letting artificial intelligence assist financial decisions, but trust issues remain.
Close to six-in-10 (58%) U.S. consumers are comfortable with AI agents comparing prices. In addition, 55% of consumers surveyed as part of the Visa “Business-to-AI (B2AI) Report” are comfortable with AI applying discounts.
However, only 38% of consumer respondents are comfortable with AI completing a purchase and a lower 27% are comfortable allowing AI to spend money autonomously without limits. Six-in-10 would not allow AI to spend any amount without approval.
Consumer trust in AI shopping agents increases significantly when financial institutions are involved:
- 36% trust bank-backed AI systems.
- 35% trust payment network-enabled AI.
- Only 28% trust independent AI agents.
Interestingly, the shift toward trusting bank-backed AI systems is especially pronounced among younger consumers. Nearly half of Gen Z (48%) respondents say they trust payment network-enabled AI systems, compared to only 20% of boomers.
Among Gen Z and millennial respondents using AI shopping assistants, nearly half report making purchases they wouldn’t otherwise have considered due to AI recommendations.
[READ MORE: Agentic AI may drive up to half of all online transactions by 2027]
Other notable consumer findings include:
- Voice assistants are the AI tool consumers are most familiar with, with large language models (LLMs) tied with social media AI tools behind voice assistants.
- Consumers still primarily use AI for entertainment, followed by social communication and work tasks.
- Groceries are the product consumers most frequently purchase with AI assistance, while budgeting and expense tracking are among the most frequent weekly use cases.
Businesses look to AI commerce
More than half (53%) of surveyed U.S. businesses would allow AI agents to negotiate prices or terms directly with other AI agents on their behalf. Seven-in-10 (71%) business respondents say they are willing to optimize products, offers and experiences specifically for AI agents, while 77% are already using or piloting AI in their operations.
In addition, 88% of business respondents would permit AI agents to negotiate directly with other AI agents and 55% are already familiar with the concept of business-to-AI commerce.
“Commerce is moving from market-to-human to market-to-machine,” said Frank Cooper III, chief marketing officer at Visa. “B2AI describes what happens next as AI agents begin evaluating, negotiating and transacting on behalf of people. In that world, as always, trust becomes the critical infrastructure. If we don’t build it into machine-mediated commerce, adoption stalls.”
This survey was conducted by Visa and Morning Consult Jan. 29 – Feb. 6, 2026, among a sample of 2,000 adults in the U.S. and 512 business decision-makers in the U.S. The interviews were conducted online.
