Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) vs EMV Agentic Payments – Framework for Specifications
The map lists them as complementary: sites and agents commonly implement both.
| Agent Payments Protocol AP2 | EMV Agentic Payments – Framework for Specifications EMV Agentic Payments | |
|---|---|---|
| Lifecycle step | 7 Pay: Settle the bill | 7 Pay: Settle the bill |
| Answers | Did the user actually authorize what this agent is about to buy and pay for, and can the merchant prove it later? | When a card network, issuer, merchant, or wallet sees an AI-agent-initiated card payment, how do they consistently find out what the consumer actually authorised — recurring purchase, spending cap, post-transaction change — rather than each building a bespoke, one-off signal? |
| Governed by | Google; core specification donated to the FIDO Alliance (Payments TWG and Agentic Authentication TWG), 2026-04-28; the google-agentic-commerce/AP2 repository now hosts only samples and an SDK, not the normative spec text | EMVCo, the technical body jointly owned by American Express, Discover, JCB, Mastercard, UnionPay and Visa, which creates and manages the EMV Specifications; this framework is being developed by EMVCo's dedicated Agentic Payments Task Force with input from EMVCo Associates and Subscribers, and in collaboration with the FIDO Alliance, the OpenID Foundation, the OpenWallet Foundation and W3C |
| Status (issuer's words) | Security/authorization protocol for agent-performed payments; core spec now stewarded by FIDO Alliance | Draft v1.0, released for public review and comment; EMVCo describes it as ‘a foundation for further industry engagement and potential specification development’, not itself a finished specification |
| Version | v0.2.0 (2026-04-28) | EMV® Agentic Payments – Framework for Specifications, v1.0 DRAFT (2026-08-31) |
| Form / transport | endpoint | document format |
| Found at | none | none |
| Implementation | multi-implementation — Google (launch blog post, 60+ launch partners) | none found |
| Evidence | 4 verified, 2 reported | 4 verified |
| Primary use case | Let agents buy on behalf of a person | Let agents buy on behalf of a person |
| Last verified | 2026-10-23 (current) | 2026-10-23 (current) |
| Specification | https://raw.githubusercontent.com/google-agentic-commerce/AP2/main/docs/ap2/specification.md | https://www.emvco.com/resources/emv-agentic-payments-framework-for-specifications-v1-0-draft-comment-period-ends-30-sept-2026/ |
When to use which
- Choose Agent Payments Protocol when your question is “Did the user actually authorize what this agent is about to buy and pay for, and can the merchant prove it later?” and you accept its maturity: status "Security/authorization protocol for agent-performed payments; core spec now stewarded by FIDO Alliance", implementation multi-implementation (Google (launch blog post, 60+ launch partners)).
- Choose EMV Agentic Payments – Framework for Specifications when your question is “When a card network, issuer, merchant, or wallet sees an AI-agent-initiated card payment, how do they consistently find out what the consumer actually authorised — recurring purchase, spending cap, post-transaction change — rather than each building a bespoke, one-off signal?” and you accept its maturity: status "Draft v1.0, released for public review and comment; EMVCo describes it as ‘a foundation for further industry engagement and potential specification development’, not itself a finished specification", implementation none found.
Read the full articles
- Agent Payments Protocol: Did the user actually authorize what this agent is about to buy and pay for, and can the merchant prove it later?
- EMV Agentic Payments – Framework for Specifications: When a card network, issuer, merchant, or wallet sees an AI-agent-initiated card payment, how do they consistently find out what the consumer actually authorised — recurring purchase, spending cap, post-transaction change — rather than each building a bespoke, one-off signal?