Bill, Billtrust, Visa pilot AI payments that don't need human authentication

Key insight: Learn why AI agents are now bypassing manual logins to complete B2B payments.
Expert quote: “For too long, supplier portals have been friction points…” — Archana Prasad, SVP, Bill
Forward look: Continued exploration of agentic payment opportunities as the live pilot progresses.

A trio of companies have announced what they say is the first live pilot to enable AI agents to initiate and complete approved buyer invoice payments end-to-end through supplier portals without the need for human authentication.

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“Nearly 500,000 businesses trust Bill to move, manage and maximize their money, and that trust depends on removing friction without sacrificing accuracy and security of supplier payments,” said Archana Prasad, senior vice president of payments and financial services at Bill, in a statement. “For too long, supplier portals have been friction points, requiring a person to manually complete what should be an automated step. With Visa and Billtrust, Bill’s AI-powered payments technology is closing that gap: the payment gets done, the supplier gets paid faster, and finance teams get their time back.”

The current live pilot is being conducted by payments solutions platform Bill, accounts receivable specialist Billtrust, and Visa. Overall, it is meant to look at how an authorized AI agent can complete approved invoice payments on behalf of a buyer. Until now, that final payment step often requires an employee to manually log into a supplier portal and submit payment information. This pilot explores how trusted agents can complete that task independently while still maintaining buyer-defined controls and visibility.

“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,” said Kunal Patel, senior vice president of payments with Billtrust, in a statement. “By connecting buyer-side invoice approval with supplier-side payment acceptance, this pilot shows how authorized agents can complete business transactions, releasing trapped cash faster while adhering to a complex acceptance policy and preserving visibility and control for both sides.”

This process begins when a payment agent from Bill, registered under Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol and Agentic Directory, uses tokenized payment credentials (versus a shared supplier portal login) to issue a payment on behalf of the Bill customer following preset payment controls tied to their approved instructions, supported by Visa Intelligent Commerce, which enables automated card payments for supplier invoices.

Once the payment is initiated, Billtrust then uses the Trusted Agent Protocol to recognize, authenticate, and grant access to the authorized agent. This agent will not be stopped by traditional bot-blocking measures like CAPTCHA, as it can satisfy such site protections without requiring an additional login. Consequently, Billtrust customers can then receive fast portal payments in accordance with their acceptance policy.

The success of this pilot would mean buyer-side platforms like Bill could expand card-payment opportunities to suppliers that historically supported automated payments primarily through ACH or check while supplier-side platforms, such as Billtrust, could enable faster portal payments to improve Days Sales Outstanding.

“Businesses should not have to choose between automation and control when making payments,” said Mark Nelsen, senior vice president and head of product for commercial and money movement solutions at Visa, in a statement. “This pilot applies agentic commerce to a real B2B-payment problem, by having trusted agents complete payments across platforms. Working with Bill and Billtrust, we are testing how identity, payment controls and transaction visibility can make that model work.”

The companies, in a statement, stressed that the agent only executes eligible payments that have already been approved by the buyer, but it does not make buying decisions on its own. B2B payments were determined to be a good use case for this pilot as they already operate within established approvals, controls and the buyer’s rules.

The pilot is currently live and processing end-to-end transactions with participating buyers using Bill and Billtrust suppliers. As the pilot progresses, Visa, Bill and Billtrust will continue exploring opportunities in agentic payments.

Introductory bullet points created by AI with editorial review.