Ant International Open-Sources Agentic Mobile Protocol for AI Payments

The company on Friday open-sourced its Agentic Mobile Protocol (AMP) on GitHub, effectively putting it forward as a potential global technical standard for how AI agents securely pay for real-world goods.

AMP was built onto Ant International’s existing Alipay+ cross-border network, which connects to 10 major Asian digital wallets serving 1.5 billion consumer accounts for an initial phase, according to the company.

The protocol’s release would “enable agents to enter existing mobile payment systems as trusted actors”, allowing platforms like Alipay in mainland China, AlipayHK in Hong Kong, Starryblu in Singapore, and KakaoPay or Toss in South Korea to accelerate their AI strategies, said Yang Jiang-ming, Ant International’s chief innovation officer.

Beyond Asia, Ant International on Thursday also announced a joint effort with credit card giants Visa and Mastercard on a so-called know-your-agent (KYA) framework, an effort to establish standardised identity verification for AI agents across card networks, digital wallets and online marketplaces globally, the company said.

The launches come as tech firms increasingly focus on autonomous AI agents capable of carrying out end-to-end commercial tasks.