Google announced the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), an open protocol developed with leading payments and technology companies to securely initiate and transact agent-led payments across platforms. The protocol can be used as an extension of the Agent2Agent (A2A) protocol and Model Context Protocol (MCP). In concert with industry rules and standards, it establishes a payment-agnostic framework for users, merchants, and payments providers to transact with confidence across all types of payment methods. Google is collaborating on agentic payments with more than 60 companies, some of which include Adyen, American Express, Mastercard, PayPal, Coinbase and Revolut. AP2 builds trust by using Mandates—tamper-proof, cryptographically-signed digital contracts that serve as verifiable proof of a user’s instructions. These mandates are signed by verifiable credentials (VCs) and act as the foundational evidence for every transaction. Mandates address the two primary ways a user will shop with an agent: Real-time purchases (human present) and Delegated tasks (human not present). This complete sequence—from intent, to cart, to payment—creates a non-repudiable audit trail that answers the critical questions of authorization and authenticity, providing a clear foundation for accountability.