Startup Lava Payments, aims to take on payment giants by building a solution for the modern web where AI agents now handle transactions for their customers. Lava is a digital wallet that lets merchants use usage credits to facilitate transactions. The idea is that one set of credits working across merchants and services makes it easier for autonomous agents to make payments without needing human intervention. It works like this: A merchant can enable the Lava wallet for their customers to use and upload (credits) money to. Once a customer does that, they can take that money and use it at any merchant that also accepts Lava and any of the foundational models, like GPT and Claude, on a “pay as you go basis.” So, rather than having to pay for each tool, a user buys a one-time usage credit that AI agents can simply charge as they perform various tasks. No more asking the user to approve transaction after transaction. Without Lava, agents can’t move smoothly through the internet because they constantly get blocked when it comes time to pay. Lava is set to be the “invisible layer that kind of powers the AI web,” especially as AI agents find themselves more and more in the checkout line. “We see the world as very interconnected,” founder Mitchell Jones said about what makes his product different. “What we’re really focused on is building [for the] agent-native economy.”