Visa, BILL and Billtrust said on Oct. 20 they’ve launched a live pilot in which AI agents start and complete approved invoice payments from buyers through supplier payment portals. The companies call it the first live pilot of its kind.
The problem is a common one in business payments.
Many supplier portals require a person to log in and type in payment details, which has limited how much of the process can be automated, the companies said. BILL and Billtrust sell software for paying and collecting bills. BILL says nearly 500,000 businesses use it.
How it works
The pilot runs on Visa Intelligent Commerce, Visa’s set of tools for payments started by AI agents, and its Trusted Agent Protocol. Visa introduced that protocol in October 2025 as an open framework, developed with Cloudflare, that lets merchants check cryptographically that an AI agent is trusted and not a malicious bot.
The flow starts on the buyer’s side. BILL’s Payment Agent is registered with Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol and its Agentic Directory, a registry of Visa-verified agents and merchants that Visa introduced in June. The agent uses tokenized card credentials, which stand in for real card numbers, and controls tied to the buyer’s approved payment instructions, according to the announcement.
On the supplier’s side, Billtrust uses the same protocol to recognize the agent, authenticate it and let it into the portal to finish the payment. The companies say that check can replace CAPTCHAs and other bot-blocking tools without a separate login for the agent.
The pilot uses tokenized credentials rather than shared portal logins, ties each payment to a specific invoice and gives both sides visibility into authorization and completion, the companies said.
What they said
“Businesses should not have to choose between automation and control when making payments,” said Mark Nelsen, Visa’s senior vice president and head of product for commercial and money movement solutions. He said the pilot tests “how identity, payment controls and transaction visibility can make that model work.”
Archana Prasad, BILL’s senior vice president of payments and financial services, called supplier portals long-standing friction points “requiring a person to manually complete what should be an automated step.”
Kunal Patel, Billtrust’s senior vice president of payments, said agentic commerce will move forward only if businesses can trust agents “with the same clarity and accountability they expect from people.”
The agent doesn’t decide what to pay, according to a FAQ attached to the announcement. It only carries out eligible payments the buyer has already approved, and buyers don’t have to share their supplier-portal logins.
The companies also see a card angle. Buyer platforms such as BILL could offer card payments to suppliers that have mostly taken automated payments by ACH bank transfer or check, the FAQ says.
The pilot is live and processing transactions with participating buyers on BILL and Billtrust suppliers, the companies said. They didn’t say how many businesses are taking part or when it might expand. Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol code is published on GitHub.
Mastercard announced early developer access the same day to Agent Pay for Machines, its own program for payments made by AI agents.
Source: Visa (BusinessWire), Visa, “Visa, BILL and Billtrust Launch First Live Pilot for Trusted AI Agent Payments Between Buyer and Supplier Platforms”
Additional sources: Visa, “Visa Unveils Trusted Agent Protocol for AI Commerce”; GitHub, Visa, “trusted-agent-protocol”
