Visa’s crypto division, Visa Crypto Labs, launched an experimental command line interface tool called Visa CLI, designed to let AI agents make same-day programmatic card payments. In parallel, the Stripe-backed Tempo blockchain went live on its mainnet, introducing a new Machine Payments Protocol for AI agent transactions. These developments, alongside recent standards from Coinbase and integrations by Worldcoin, signal a growing industry push to enable autonomous AI payments using stablecoins and traditional rails.
Visa Crypto Labs unveiled its first experimental product, Visa CLI, a command line interface tool for AI agents. The tool aims to provide AI agents with “the ability to securely pay for what you need as you code” and facilitates programmatic card payments without using potentially leaky API keys.
The launch coincides with the mainnet debut of the Stripe-backed Tempo blockchain, which is purpose-built for high-throughput stablecoin payments. Tempo simultaneously released the Machine Payments Protocol, an open standard it developed with Stripe to give “a standard way for agents and services to coordinate payments programmatically.”
This protocol is designed to be extensible and payment-method agnostic. Visa has extended support for the protocol on its card network, while Stripe is supporting cards, wallets, and other methods, and Lightspark added support over the Lightning Network for Bitcoin (BTC) payments.
These announcements represent the latest industry standards aiming to enable AI agents to execute online payments. Coinbase launched a similar standard, x402, in May to facilitate agentic stablecoin payments, which was recently integrated by Sam Altman’s World in a developer toolkit.
The moves come as hype around AI and stablecoins continues to grow. Tempo stated that as AI systems become more capable, “they increasingly need to transact,” predicting that “Agent payments will soon overtake human payments on the internet.”
