Trust gap in AI-powered payments across APAC, report reveals

By Vriti Gothi

Artificial intelligence is rapidly embedding itself into the front end of digital commerce across the Asia Pacific. Still, the region’s payments ecosystem faces a structural challenge: converting AI-driven discovery into trusted, completed transactions.

That is the central finding of Visa’s State of Digital Commerce in Asia Pacific 2025 study, conducted by YouGov, which surveyed 14,764 consumers across 14 markets. While 74% of respondents said they already use AI-powered tools to discover, track or research products, trust in AI declines sharply when payments and personal data are involved.

For FinTech providers, the message is clear: AI may be transforming customer acquisition and engagement, but payment security, authentication and data governance will determine whether agentic commerce can scale sustainably.

“The way people shop is changing quickly, with AI now playing a growing role in how consumers discover and choose products,” said T.R. Ramachandran, Head of Products & Solutions, Asia Pacific at Visa. “But as AI becomes part of the checkout experience, trust and control become even more important. Consumers want to understand how their data is being used and feel confident that every transaction is secure. Building that trust is what will determine whether AI-powered commerce can truly scale.”

The study highlights a widening gap between AI-enabled product discovery and payment authorisation. While consumers are comfortable using AI to compare prices and understand product features, 32% remain reluctant to share personal or payment information with AI systems. Nearly half (45%) said stronger assurances around payment security would make them more open to AI-powered or agentic commerce.

This suggests that the bottleneck in AI commerce is not algorithmic sophistication, but trust infrastructure, including tokenisation, identity verification, and secure authentication protocols.

For payment networks and FinTechs, the opportunity lies in building the “trust layer” that sits between AI agents, merchants and consumers. Visa pointed to initiatives such as Visa Intelligent Commerce and its Trusted Agent Protocol as part of its strategy to support secure AI-mediated transactions, alongside tokenisation and payment passkeys.

The research also challenges the assumption that digitally mature markets will lead AI-commerce adoption. Consumers in Australia (38%), New Zealand (37%) and Singapore (34%) report above-average caution around data use. Among affluent households, 39% expressed heightened expectations on how their data is managed, compared with 29% in lower-income groups.

In Singapore and Japan, only 14% of consumers expressed interest in AI-enabled online purchases, while 16% did so in New Zealand. In these markets, improved payment security emerged as the strongest enabler of adoption.

The findings suggest that as markets mature, regulatory awareness and consumer expectations around privacy and authentication intensify raising the bar for FinTech providers operating in AI-driven commerce.

By contrast, India and Vietnam show higher openness, with 42% of consumers in each market willing to use AI for online purchases. The data indicates stronger consumer appetite for experimentation in high-growth digital economies, where convenience and innovation may outweigh caution.

However, the study underscores that long-term scalability will still depend on embedding secure payment frameworks from the outset, particularly as agentic commerce models evolve to include autonomous AI agents executing transactions on behalf of users.

The research arrives as AI transitions from a recommendation engine to a transactional actor. As AI agents begin to initiate and complete payments, questions around liability, authentication, consent management and fraud mitigation become central to FinTech strategy.

For payment providers, the competitive differentiator may no longer be speed or user interface alone, but the ability to deliver secure, interoperable and regulator-aligned payment rails that support AI-native commerce models.

The study concludes that while AI is already reshaping digital engagement across Asia Pacific, the next phase of growth will hinge on building consumer confidence at the checkout layer — where payments, identity and trust converge.