Visa Launches AI Agent Payment Pilot Alongside New Commercial Payment Tools
On October 21, 2026, Visa announced three new commercial payment capabilities: SESA 2.0, a supplier enablement spending analysis platform; Visa Commercial Fraud Solutions; and a real-time AI agent payment pilot launched with BILL and Billtrust.
SESA 2.0 combines AI supplier scoring, Visa commercial payment data, buyer benchmarks, and business value modeling to help financial institutions identify suppliers likely to accept commercial card payments. Visa said the SESA platform has helped identify more than $600 billion in potential card-payable spend.
Visa Commercial Fraud Solutions includes supplier validation, virtual card user authentication via 3-D Secure, and transaction-level payment controls. Payment Controls is available to eligible issuers in qualifying countries, while the other two tools are in pilot and expected to be generally available in 2027.
The pilot with BILL and Billtrust is described as the first real-time trial enabling trusted AI agents to initiate and complete approved buyer invoice payments end-to-end. Using Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol and Agentic Directory, the agents are registered with tokenized payment credentials and buyer-approved controls, avoiding shared supplier portal logins. The trial is currently processing end-to-end transactions between participating BILL buyers and Billtrust suppliers on a limited basis.
Visa also cited Juniper Research data projecting global B2B virtual card payments to reach $14.6 trillion by 2029, accounting for 83% of the global virtual card market.
