Stripe has upgraded its Link digital wallet to support autonomous AI agents, allowing them to make purchases, book reservations, buy tickets, and complete other transactions on a user's behalf without ever accessing raw payment credentials. The announcement came at Stripe's annual Sessions conference and addresses one of the most significant friction points in the growing AI agent ecosystem: the security risk of giving an autonomous system direct access to your payment information. Link solves this through an OAuth authentication flow where users grant their agent access to the wallet, the agent creates a spend request with context for the user to review, and the payment credential is only shared after the user explicitly approves the transaction. On mobile and web, users receive a notification to approve before any funds move.The technical infrastructure behind the feature is built on Stripe's new Issuing for Agents product, which lets users issue virtual cards specifically for agent use with real-time authorization, spending controls, and full transaction visibility.

Rather than giving an agent access to a primary card, users can grant programmatic access to Link which provides a one-time-use card, or use a Shared Payment Token backed by payment cards and bank accounts. Link currently supports traditional payment methods including cards, bank accounts, crypto wallets, and buy now pay later services, with support for agentic tokens, stablecoins, and other payment types coming soon. Stripe is also positioning Link as a ready-built wallet infrastructure for developers building their own AI agents or personal assistants, removing the need to build payment infrastructure from scratch.