Ready for an artificial intelligence bot to buy things for you? Love it or hate it, the option is getting closer to reality thanks in part to a deal between Mastercard and fintech firm Alchemy.

While Mastercard first announced its agentic payment framework back in 2025, the new deal links it to Alchemy's agent infrastructure, which developers can use to enable their AI agents buy stuff.

The Alchemy tool kit is called AgentCard. Alchemy first announced it in March, then unveiled its Visa partnership in June. Developers can integrate it into their AI agents, which in turn can be customized to buy anything from food to airline tickets.

The partnership will "help agents move beyond recommendations and take action, with user authorization, issuer controls, payment protections and support for verifiable proof of intent built in," Alchemy said in its announcement.

Agentic payment systems are being developed by a number of other companies, including PayPal and Stripe.

Mastercard has also partnered with other firms, including Microsoft and IBM, to develop agentic commerce.

Both Mastercard and Visa stocks were flat on the news. Alchemy, which is based in San Francisco, isn't publicly traded.

Mastercard didn't immediately reply to Barron's request for comment.