Agent Payments Protocol (AP2): Revolutionizing Secure AI Agent Commerce with Cryptographic Verification

Introduction The rapid growth of artificial intelligence has introduced a new era where AI agents can perform complex tasks on our behalf, including making purchases and completing transactions. While this capability offers tremendous convenience, it also creates significant challenges for traditional payment systems that were designed with human operators in mind. Today’s payment infrastructure assumes that a human is directly clicking “buy” on a trusted interface, but when autonomous agents initiate payments, this fundamental assumption breaks down. The Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) emerges as a solution to this critical challenge. Developed through collaboration between Google and over 60 leading payments …