Financial services giants Santander and Visa have achieved a significant milestone in artificial intelligence-powered commerce, completing the first series of agentic transaction pilots across Latin America.
The companies announced Thursday that they successfully executed AI-driven purchases in five key markets: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Uruguay. The transactions were facilitated through Visa's Intelligent Commerce (VIC) solution, representing what both firms describe as a major advancement in automated shopping technology.
The pilot program demonstrated practical applications of AI agents handling real purchases autonomously. In Brazil, artificial intelligence systems successfully purchased chocolates, while AI agents in the other four countries completed book transactions, showcasing the technology's versatility across different product categories and markets.
"This is a major step toward making AI-assisted shopping a practical reality," said Matías Sánchez, global head of cards and digital solutions at Santander. "By testing real transactions, we demonstrated how these technologies act as enablers of secure, interoperable agentic commerce that maintains strong consumer protections and issuer controls."
The initiative represents what the companies characterize as a breakthrough in consumer delegation of shopping responsibilities to trusted AI systems. This approach allows consumers to authorize AI agents to conduct purchases on their behalf while maintaining security protocols and institutional oversight.
Visa's Latin American leadership emphasized the transformative potential of the pilot program for regional commerce. Catalina Tobar, head of growth products and partnerships for Visa Latin America and the Caribbean, called the pilot a "defining moment" for commerce in the region.
"Through Visa Intelligent Commerce, we're laying the foundation for AI-driven transactions that are secure, seamless and built for scale — ensuring every player in the ecosystem is ready for what comes next," Tobar added.
The Visa Intelligent Commerce platform, unveiled in April 2024, opens Visa's payment network infrastructure to developers creating AI agents capable of searching, recommending, and executing payments for consumers. The system aims to transform traditional shopping experiences by enabling AI systems to operate within established financial networks.
"This is going to transform shopping and buying— we're letting AI developers and engineers use the Visa network to allow AI agents to find, and buy, on [the consumer's] behalf in a seamless and safe way," Mark Nelsen, global head of consumers products at Visa, told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster in an interview at the time of the platform's launch.
The Latin American pilot follows closely on Santander's European AI payment initiatives. Just ten days prior, Santander and Mastercard completed what they described as Europe's first live end-to-end payment using an artificial intelligence agent, conducted through Mastercard's Agent Pay program in a controlled banking environment.
These developments signal accelerating adoption of AI-driven payment technologies within regulated financial frameworks. The successful completion of cross-border AI transactions in multiple markets demonstrates the scalability of agentic commerce solutions and their potential integration into mainstream financial services.
Industry observers will be monitoring how quickly these pilot programs expand into commercial deployment and whether other financial institutions will launch similar AI-powered payment initiatives across Latin America and globally.