BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 13. Azerbaijan has a strong foundation to integrate artificial intelligence into e-commerce, Godfrey Sullivan, Visa Senior Vice President, Head of Products and Solutions, CEMEA (Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa), told Trend in an exclusive interview.
“Today, hundreds of millions of people around the world are using AI tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Grok. Our recent research has shown that 60 percent of users use these AI agents to search for products or services - whether it is holiday destinations, clothing, or gifts. However, these queries are not yet converted into payments,” he said.
Sullivan emphasized that the next major step will be integrating payments into AI agents. For example, a user will be able to ask ChatGPT to book a trip to Dubai or Baku, and the AI agent will select a flight, hotel, and restaurants, and then, with the user’s approval, complete the booking and payment. This will completely change the approach to transactions.
“Every decade we see breakthroughs like this: first came e-commerce, then mobile commerce. Now we are on the verge of the era of AI commerce, which, according to our forecast, will actively develop in the next 18 - 24 months,” he added.
Senior Vice President also noted that at the recent Visa Global Product Drop presentation, the company unveiled its Visa Intelligent Commerce program, aimed at building the smart shopping assistants of the future. It will provide top-level protection for AI transactions for consumers, merchants, and banks.
“We have launched five APIs (Application Programming Interface): to upload Visa credentials into an AI agent, authenticate the user, protect against fraud, and personalize the experience - all while maintaining full anonymity. We also introduced the Know-Your-Agent protocol: all AI agents participating in Visa’s partner program will be certified, so banks, merchants, and users can be confident in the security of their transactions,” Sullivan stressed.
According to him, this opens new opportunities for businesses. Currently, large companies spend millions on Google Ads or emotional advertising. But AI agents care only about relevance. This levels the playing field for small businesses, allowing them to compete without large marketing budgets.
“To simplify onboarding, we launched the Visa Acceptance Agent Toolkit for integration into agentic commerce. Merchants will also be able to incorporate AI models directly into their online stores, making shopping faster and more convenient,” told Visa Senior Vice President.
Sullivan also noted that online shopping still has inconveniences, requiring entering long card numbers, expiry dates, and CVV codes.
“Our goal is to make online payments as simple as tap-to-pay in stores. That is what Visa Payment Passkey is designed for: it allows you to use a financial phone number or email instead of entering your card details, with authentication via Face ID or fingerprint. This eliminates the need for one-time passwords, which are easier for fraudsters to intercept,” he said.
The Visa representative also mentioned another promising project - Visa Flex Credential. This solution uses a single universal identifier instead of multiple cards, functioning as a debit card, credit card, or buy-now-pay-later tool and switching between payment options for greater convenience and flexibility. The company is also piloting stablecoins for interbank settlements, linking wallets to the Visa network, and partnering with fintechs such as Yellowcard and Honeycoin.
Regarding Azerbaijan, Sullivan noted that the country’s cashless economy is developing rapidly.
“Already, 67 percent of payments by value and 91 percent by number are digital. Most Azerbaijani banks support Apple Pay and Google Pay. The high mobile and digital adoption, as well as support from the government and the Central Bank, create an excellent foundation for deploying AI shopping agents, biometrics, and other innovations. I am confident that in the next 18 months, we will see rapid growth of digital technologies in Azerbaijan,” the Visa representative said.
Answering a question about small and medium-sized businesses in Azerbaijan, he said: “We are offering Azerbaijani small businesses accessible technologies and broad support. Visa Tap to Phone, which turns Android smartphones into full-fledged payment terminals, is in high demand: nine banks already support this feature, and usage volume has grown by 37 percent by early 2025. The She’s Next Empowered by Visa program, aimed at supporting female entrepreneurs, is also very successful - it has already been held in Azerbaijan for the third time. The next step is the launch of Visa Accept for micro-entrepreneurs, which will allow merchants to receive payments to their Visa card from any NFC-capable (Near Field Communication) smartphone with just a few clicks. This is another tool leveling the playing field in the new digital economy.”