News
Visa, BILL and Billtrust test AI agents that pay approved invoices
Everyday Banking · October 21, 2026
Picture someone who handles the bills at a small company. The invoice from a supplier has already been approved. The money is ready to go. But to actually pay it, they still have to log into the supplier's website, type in the details by hand, and click through a few screens. Then do it again for the next supplier.
That last manual step is the subject of an announcement from Visa, BILL and Billtrust.
What was announced
According to an October 20, 2026 release from Visa, the three companies have launched what they call "the first live pilot to enable trusted AI agents to initiate and complete approved buyer invoice payments end-to-end through supplier portals."
BILL and Billtrust are business software companies. Visa's release describes them as accounts payable and receivable providers. In plain terms, BILL sits on the side of the business paying the invoice, and Billtrust sits on the side of the supplier getting paid.
The release says the pilot is "currently live and processing end-to-end transactions with participating buyers using BILL and Billtrust suppliers."
How it works, according to Visa
Many supplier payment portals were built for a person to sign in, and they often use checks like CAPTCHA to keep automated bots out. Visa's release says that has limited how much of an approved payment could be automated.
In the pilot, an AI agent from BILL is registered with what Visa calls its Trusted Agent Protocol and Agentic Directory. When it arrives at a Billtrust supplier portal, Billtrust uses the same protocol to recognize the agent, authenticate it, and let it complete the payment. Visa says this "can satisfy the site protections historically provided by CAPTCHA and other bot blocking mechanisms, without requiring an additional agent login."
Visa says the pilot enables:
- A recognized and authenticated AI agent acting on behalf of an identified buyer
- Tokenized payment credentials rather than shared supplier-portal logins
- Payment controls tied to the customer's approved payment instruction
- A purpose-built payment path tied to the specific invoice
- Visibility into the authorization and completion of the payment
The agent does not decide
The most important detail is in the release's own Q&A. Asked whether the AI agent is making payment decisions, the answer is: "No. The agent only executes eligible payments that have already been approved by the buyer."
The release also says buyers do not need to share supplier-portal logins. The pilot "is designed to eliminate the need to share supplier-portal logins."
So the human approval stays where it was. What the pilot aims to automate is the typing and clicking after the approval.
What the companies said
Mark Nelsen, SVP and Head of Product, Commercial & Money Movement Solutions at Visa, said in the release: "Businesses should not have to choose between automation and control when making payments."
Archana Prasad, SVP of Payments and Financial Services at BILL, said: "For too long, supplier portals have been friction points, requiring a person to manually complete what should be an automated step."
Kunal Patel, SVP Payments at Billtrust, said: "Agentic commerce will only move forward if businesses can trust agents to operate across systems with the same clarity and accountability they expect from people."
Why it matters
This is a business-to-business pilot, not a consumer product. It is about how companies pay each other's invoices, not about how people shop.
But the questions it raises are ones a lot of people are starting to ask about AI and money. Who approved this? Can the agent go beyond what it was told? Can I see what it did? Visa's answers, as stated in the release, are identity for the agent, controls tied to an approved instruction, and visibility into each payment.
It is also early. The release calls it a pilot and says the companies "will continue exploring opportunities in agentic payments" as it progresses.
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