Mastercard Opens Early Access to Payment System for AI Agents 🔹 Mastercard has introduced a payment system for AI agents called Agent Pay for Machines. It allows AI agents to pay for digital services on behalf of companies while staying within predefined budgets and permissions. The company demonstrated the solution at the Cloudflare Connect conference and announced an early access program for developers. 🔹 Agent Pay for Machines is built on the open x402 protocol, which enables digital services to request payments over the internet. Mastercard combines it with its trust and security mechanisms, allowing agents to pay for data, AI models, computing resources, and other digital services. 🔹 The company explained that traditional payment methods for digital services typically require separate accounts, API keys, prepaid credits, or billing arrangements with each provider. This complicates the work of agents that need to select services independently while completing tasks.