Visa, BILL and Billtrust are testing AI agents that log into supplier sites and pay approved invoices, which could save finance teams time and speed up payment.
Visa is testing AI helpers that can pay your business invoices for you. The live pilot runs with BILL, a payments company, and Billtrust, which serves suppliers. It targets the last manual step in paying many invoices: logging into a supplier's website to complete the payment.
Even when a company uses software to manage its bills, someone often has to log into a supplier portal and enter the payment by hand. A portal is a website where a supplier collects payment. In the pilot, an authorized BILL Payment Agent does that step. It relies on Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol to secure authentication, so approved invoice payments can be completed without a person typing them in.
The agent uses tokenized payment credentials that match the buyer's payment instructions. A token stands in for the real card details, so sensitive data is not shared. Mark Nelsen, a Visa senior vice president, said, "Businesses should not have to choose between automation and control when making payments."
For buyers, the promise is time and faster cash movement. Archana Prasad of BILL said the payment gets done, the supplier gets paid faster, and finance teams get their time back. Suppliers are part of the test too. Billtrust customers can recognize and accept payments started by trusted business agents, following their existing acceptance policies.
The article names several challenges for small businesses weighing this kind of tool:
Not yet clear from the announcement: which businesses can join the pilot, what it costs, and when it might be widely available.
Visa, BILL and Billtrust plan to explore more uses of agentic payments, meaning payments made by AI agents on a buyer's behalf. For now, the practical step is clear communication with your finance team and suppliers about what an automated agent is allowed to do.
If AI agents start paying your invoices, the key control is a clear, checked list of what each agent is approved to pay.
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