Visa launched a live pilot with BILL and Billtrust at Money20/20 USA in late October 2026 to test end-to-end B2B invoice payments executed by software agents. The agents act on invoices enterprise buyers have already approved; they do not decide which supplier payments to authorize. Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol and Agentic Directory are designed to authenticate those agents when they access supplier and merchant portals without shared credentials or manual human login. Separately, Visa has put Commercial Payment Controls into production for eligible issuers in supported regions, allowing businesses to set limits and restrictions on corporate spending. The company plans general availability of Commercial Virtual Authentication and Commercial Supplier Validation in 2027 after pilot completion. Its SESA 2.0 analytics platform has identified more than $600 billion in potentially cardable supplier spend. The pilot tests whether approved invoice payments can be executed through automated workflows while preserving buyer-defined controls.

Visa, BILL and Billtrust announced a live commercial pilot on October 20, 2026, that lets AI agents initiate and execute approved business invoice payments through supplier portals. The BILL Payment Agent uses tokenized payment credentials restricted to buyer-authorized invoices and predefined rules. Billtrust authenticates the agent through Visa’s Agentic Directory and Trusted Agent Protocol without requiring shared login credentials. The pilot tests how an agent can establish its identity and payment authority, but it does not give the agent authority to approve invoices independently. Visa’s protocol uses cryptographic signatures to bind requests to a particular merchant domain and page. The distinction matters for liability: commercial payment protections may be altered by contract, while AI software agreements may limit vendor exposure. Visa separately announced expanded commercial capabilities on October 21, with supplier validation and authentication controls scheduled for general availability in 2027. The EU’s draft Payment Services Regulation does not directly address autonomous agent payments.

Visa, BILL and Billtrust have begun a live pilot in which a payment agent executes end-to-end business invoice settlements between participating buyers on BILL and suppliers on Billtrust. The BILL Payment Agent acts only on buyer-approved payment instructions; it cannot choose invoices independently. Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol lets Billtrust verify the agent’s cryptographic identity, while invoice-specific tokenized credentials replace exposed portal credentials and physical card data. The pilot addresses a longstanding obstacle to accounts-payable automation: supplier portals often treat automated activity as a potential security threat. Visa also launched Commercial Fraud Solutions to authenticate virtual-card activity and validate supplier credentials before authorization. The companies plan to assess expansion across platforms after initial acceptance benchmarks. They have not disclosed pilot transaction volume or identified the participating enterprises, leaving the scale and broader applicability of the approach unproven.