Short definitions of the terms used across the AI Payments Map. Entries are intentionally brief; each points to a page where the term is explained in context.
An open specification for how AI agents complete checkout with merchants. Jointly maintained by OpenAI and Stripe, and maintained on GitHub with tracked versions. Used in ChatGPT Instant Checkout and Stripe Agentic Commerce Suite. See AI payments protocols.
Payments where the immediate initiator of the request is software — an AI agent, an automation, or an automated workflow — rather than a human clicking "buy." See AI-initiated payments.
An umbrella term covering at least five categories: consumer agentic checkout, enterprise AP automation, machine-to-machine and API payments, stablecoin flows initiated by software, and programmable treasury. See What are AI payments?.
Regulatory and operational controls designed to detect and prevent money laundering and terrorist financing. In payment stacks, AML usually sits in the fraud, AML, and compliance layer. See The AI payments landscape.
An open protocol from Google, announced in September 2025. It carries user intent and agent authority as cryptographically signed mandates (Intent, Cart, and Payment Mandates) built on W3C Verifiable Credentials. Network-neutral by design. See AI payments protocols.
The Bank of Russia's central bank digital currency. A third form of the national currency alongside cash and non-cash rubles. Mandatory acceptance for systemically important banks and large retailers begins on 1 September 2026 under the currently published schedule. Supports programmable features. See AI payments in Russia.
Infrastructure that moves money once a decision to move it has already been made: card networks, bank rails (ACH, SEPA, SBP, FedNow and others), stablecoin networks, CBDCs, internal ledgers, and correspondent arrangements. See Execution infrastructure vs the decision layer.
Probabilistic evaluation of payment-related signals to estimate how likely fraud is. It returns a score or recommendation, usually during card authorization. Distinct from payment decisioning. See Why fraud tools are not payment decisioning.
The layer that proposes a payment. Initiators include humans at checkout, automation tools, AI agents, enterprise copilots, ERP payment processes, and direct API calls. See The AI payments landscape.
A family of approaches for establishing the identity of an AI agent and linking it to the human or organization on whose behalf it acts. Includes Skyfire's KYAPay protocol and network-level schemes such as Visa Trusted Agent Protocol and Mastercard Agent Pay. See AI payments protocols.
A cryptographically signed record expressing a user's authority granted to an agent for specified actions. In AP2, mandates come in three forms: Intent (the conditions under which the agent may act), Cart (explicit approval of specific items), and Payment (the signal passed to payment networks). See AI-initiated payments.
The Russian operator of the Mir card scheme and the universal QR code used for SBP and, prospectively, digital-ruble payments. See AI payments in Russia.
The layer that routes an approved payment between processors, acquirers, rails, and networks. It decides how to execute a payment, not whether the payment should happen. See The AI payments landscape.
A system that sits between initiation and execution and returns a final decision on every payment request — allow, hold, block, or escalate — together with a reason code and an audit record. See The payment decision layer.
Money whose transfer can depend on predefined rules — delivery confirmation, completion of a project milestone, or an oracle signal — enforced at the platform level. Associated with stablecoins, smart contracts, and some CBDCs, including the digital ruble. See What are AI payments?.
Russia's domestic instant payment rail, launched by the Bank of Russia in 2019. Supports P2P and C2B transfers by phone number and QR code. See AI payments in Russia.
A digital asset designed to maintain a stable value relative to a reference currency, usually the U.S. dollar. Used in machine-to-machine payments, cross-border settlement, and agent-initiated flows. Major examples include USDC and USDT. See What are AI payments?.
An open modular protocol for agentic commerce, announced by Google in January 2026. Interoperates with AP2, A2A, and MCP. See AI payments protocols.
An open protocol from Coinbase, governed by a foundation co-created with Cloudflare. It reuses the HTTP 402 "Payment Required" status code to embed stablecoin payments directly into HTTP requests. By design it is not tied to a single chain; current implementations are stablecoin-oriented. See AI payments protocols.