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Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts, radio, news. We are now joined by the leader of Visa, Visa CEO, Ryan McInerney. It is great to have some time with you, Ryan. And really, we're at this age of AI. Everyone wants to talk about agentic AI. And my question is, when it starts paying for things on my behalf, how do you make that safe? I know you're thinking a lot about it via the Visa Intelligent Commerce.
Yeah, well, we made some product announcements this week at our Visa product drop that talked through a whole bunch of different ways that it's going to enable agents to buy on your behalf in a safe and secure way. And we think it's going to revolutionize shopping. It's going to make it a much better, simpler, easier experience for all of us. And we're really looking forward to deploying those products out in the ecosystem with our partners. When we're talking about products, you're talking about security, personalization, tokenization. Can you explain?
Explain exactly what this ultimate technology is doing. How will my future of commerce look as an individual? Yeah. So first of all, we're all going to have agents and they're going to be able to go out and scour the world's inventory and find what it is that we're looking for, either for ourselves. Maybe it's tickets to a hard to get concert or as a gift, you know, a hyper relevant gift for my wife for Mother's Day.
And what we have announced is a set of tools that give agents the capabilities to go make payments on your behalf. Think of that as AI-enabled visa credentials. And also the rules and the capabilities that will provide trust. Trust that consumers will have in their agents. Trust that merchants are going to have that they're going to get paid. And trust that financial institutions will have that you've actually empowered your agent to make those purchases on your behalf.
So we announced AI enabled visa cards. That's going to allow you to give your agent agency, giving them your visa credentials to go buy something on your behalf.
But we also announced important capabilities, things that enable you to set parameters and tell your agent how long do you want them to go look for something. Maybe those concert tickets we were talking about. How much are you willing for your agent to spend? Even to designate specific merchants that you want your agent to go look at and not go look at other merchants.
So it's the products, it's the capabilities that are going to give you and everyone else trust that your agent is going to go buy exactly what you're looking for on your behalf. Okay, so that concert, what year are we talking? How are we going to start to see the companies embrace the fact that I will have an agent that will go out scouring and buying on my behalf?
Yeah, you're going to see this in months. You're going to see this in the next couple of quarters. We announced a series of partnerships with all of the leading players in this space, with OpenAI, with Microsoft, with Anthropic, with Perplexity, with IBM, with Stripe, with all of the key players that are building out the infrastructure to enable this type of buying and shopping experience. So it's going to be here soon.
But what about the ticket marketers, the live nations, the stub hubs? When do they say, yeah, sure, bring us your agent. We don't need that relationship with you directly anymore, Caroline. Well, I think this is where Visa steps in. And this is where, given the network that we have, the trust that we engender among buyers and sellers in the U.S. and around the world, we believe that these platforms and capabilities are going to give, in your example, the ticket masters the trust that your agent is just
someone you've extended your own desires and capabilities to, and they're really an extension of what you're looking to do. So I think this is where we play an important role in building out that ecosystem. I'm really fascinated as to therefore how to keep this analogy going. Ticketmaster then comes to me. How do they advertise? What will this do in terms of disintermediating the experience of an ad? Yeah, I do think that over the course of time, the whole idea of advertising will need to evolve.
Agents are going to make shopping a much more efficient and much more effective process on behalf of all of us, whether it's tickets or that Mother's Day gift that I mentioned. There's so much inventory out there. There's so many places to go by, and we just don't have the time to optimize our own shopping experience. So I think shopping is going to evolve. I think advertising will have to evolve. We know that payments is going to evolve to enable all of this, and we're excited about the role that we play in that part of it.
And you've been making that role clear and investing and innovating at a time where companies are kind of a bit nervous to spend any sort of money right now or know what to do with it. I know you're in quiet period and you can't really talk more broadly about the consumer's feeling. But what about you as a leader in this moment? How do you have the conviction to spend?
Yeah, we're looking at the medium and long-term opportunities for our company and for our clients and for the ecosystem. And we're very excited about the future of not just agentic commerce that you and I were talking about, but enabling digital payments and commerce all around the world in the 200-plus countries and territories in which we operate with.
you know, 15,000 financial institutions and consumers that have, you know, more than four and a half billion credentials out there. We see enormous opportunity one year, five years, ten years out, and we remain very committed to investing to deliver that opportunity for our clients and our partners and our investors. And more broadly, do you think that you and Visa ultimately will remain the rails with which we do all of this?
Yeah, we see Visa as an incredibly important platform enabling digital commerce all around the world, not just today, but for the foreseeable future.
You know, this is the type of innovation that we have said we're committed to. If you look back in time, you look at the rise of e-commerce. Visa was essential in making that happen. You look at the rise of mobile payments. Visa was essential in making that happen. Now you look at the rise of agentic payments and agentic commerce. And with the investments that we've been making and the products that we announced this week, we believe will be essential and very relevant with this next wave of commerce that emerges from here.
You as someone who's continuing to steer this business in this moment, how have you found just as a CEO trying to make decisions? How have you found this moment compared to, I mean, I know that you're leading this visa into this new age. Has it been destabilizing to try and make executive decisions when you don't know where the next political discernment and disagreement is going to erupt?
Yeah, I think what we as a leadership team are committed to is supporting our clients, supporting our innovation roadmap. There is uncertainty in the world today. There's no question about that. But what our North Star is, is having a vision, seeing where commerce is ultimately going, seeing what consumers and buyers and sellers are ultimately looking for.
and then designing and delivering the future of commerce to enable that. And, you know, we're going to be in uncertain times. In some ways, that's what gives us enthusiasm and excitement about the type of products and solutions we're bringing to market to bring into market to enable this roadmap. What about the regulatory environment? Because for many, perhaps it hasn't quite panned out as many had thought within the new administration and the DOJ.
The regulatory environment in the U.S. and all around the world evolves all the time for us. As you can imagine, our regulators in the 200 countries that we do business around the world are very interested in us and we're engaging with them every day. You know, we're working hard to give them certainty on what we're committed to, what we're delivering, how we're ultimately supporting the economies in which we do business around the world. And, you know, those relationships evolve over time as different administrations in different countries have different priorities. But we're
We remain committed to serving the countries in which we do business and ultimately enabling their economies to grow. And through an artificial intelligence future. Is there enough rules of the game there for you to continue to innovate in the space.
Well, I think that's where we, again, play an important role. We need to provide, as it relates to payments, the rules, the standards, helping the whole ecosystem understand when there's a dispute or a chargeback or fraud driven by agents. How does that work when you either use or accept visa credentials? And those are the types of things we've been working hard on with the partners that I mentioned earlier. And we think those are, in part, the rules and capabilities that are going to provide trust.
between consumers, merchants, financial institutions, and ultimately the agents affecting commerce on behalf of all of us.
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