April 30 (Reuters) - Visa is partnering with tech

heavyweights, including Microsoft ( MSFT ) and OpenAI, to roll

out a new platform that lets users delegate their online

shopping tasks to AI agents.

While users will set spending limits, the AI agents will do

the rest - searching for products, booking vacations or ordering

groceries, the payments processor said on Wednesday.

WHY IT'S IMPORTANT

Digital commerce companies often try to shorten the time

between consumers selecting a product and making a payment to

prevent them from abandoning their purchases midway.

Shorter checkout times have become even more crucial since

the COVID-19 pandemic, when many users shifted to online

shopping.

A 2020 report by Experian found that one in three customers

were only willing to wait 30 seconds or less before abandoning

an online transaction.

Visa's new platform, Visa Intelligent Commerce, could help

reduce friction by letting AI handle routine tasks while

customers only make the final call. The smoother shopping

experience could encourage more spending.

CONTEXT

AI agents are systems that can act autonomously to perform

certain tasks. Unlike chatbots, agents do not require constant

human input.

They are expected to become a bigger part of businesses' AI

plans in the future. An analysis by Boston Consulting Group

projects the market could grow at an average annual rate of 45%

from 2024 to 2030.

Besides Microsoft ( MSFT ) and OpenAI, Visa is also collaborating

with Anthropic, IBM ( IBM ), Mistral AI, Perplexity, Samsung and

Stripe.