(Reuters) -Visa is partnering with tech heavyweights, including Microsoft 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 and OpenAI, Visa is also collaborating with Anthropic, IBM, Mistral AI, Perplexity, Samsung and Stripe.