Agentic commerce
AP2 (Agent Payments Protocol)
AP2 is a payment-authorization protocol using verifiable credentials and cryptographic mandates to prove a human authorized a specific agent-initiated purchase.
Announced by Google in September 2025, AP2 addresses the question the commerce protocols leave open: when an agent submits a payment, how does anyone later establish that the cardholder actually consented, and to what limits.
Google released v0.2 and donated the protocol to the FIDO Alliance on 28 April 2026. That governance move matters more than the version number — payment authorization controlled by a single company is a standard every other company has reason to resist, while a neutral body with a record in authentication makes broad issuer and processor adoption plausible.
In depth: What is AP2? Authorization for agent purchases