At the Mastercard Innovation Forum Spain 2026, Mastercard outlined its transformation from a card issuer to a global payments technology provider, driven by the rapid acceleration of the digital ecosystem.
On the artificial intelligence front, the company is driving “agent-based commerce,” enabling AI agents to execute complex reservations and payments on behalf of users under strict rules. With solutions like Agent Pay and partnerships with Google and Microsoft, the challenge is to verify the identity and authorization of these new “machine-consumers.”
Regarding assets and security, Mastercard notes that stablecoins require global regulatory and interoperability frameworks. At the same time, it is strengthening cybersecurity with real-time risk analysis, fraud mitigation for account-to-account payments (Consumer Fraud Risk), and malware detection on compromised merchant websites and POS terminals using AI and voice recognition.