Santander: Would You Let AI Buy You Chocolate and Books?

Banco Santander and Visa have announced the successful completion of a landmark strategic collaboration, marking the first controlled pilot of agentic commerce transactions across multiple Latin American markets. 

The news comes not long after Santander announced the first agentic payment with Mastercard within a banking framework. 

In Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay, AI agents successfully purchased books. Pivoting to consumables, AI agents in Brazil executed a transaction for chocolate. 

The initiative was powered by Visa Intelligent Commerce (VIC). This technology represents a marked shift in the fintech landscape, allowing consumers to securely delegate specific shopping tasks to trusted AI agents.

Seamless cross-border execution

The pilot provided a tangible proof point for how AI can handle real-world transactions while adhering to rigorous security standards. Executing orders for books before pivoting to chocolate, the transactions provide a tangible proof point of cross-market execution.

These transactions were executed within the existing regulated payment frameworks of both Visa and Santander, ensuring they met all necessary supervisory standards.

The VIC platform provides a suite of integrated capabilities that leverage Visa’s secure infrastructure, enabling transactions that are transparent, safe and initiated purely based on consumer consent.

The framework established during the pilot will help support the responsible and scalable adoption of AI-driven commerce throughout the region.

Matías Sánchez, Global Head of Cards and Digital Solutions at Banco Santander notes: “This is a major step toward making AI-assisted shopping a practical reality.

"By testing real transactions, we demonstrated how these technologies act as enablers of secure, interoperable agentic commerce that maintains strong consumer protections and issuer controls.”

Building the infrastructure for 2026

The shift towards agentic commerce –  where AI does not just assist with discovery but actually executes the payment –  is backed by shifting consumer data.

New research from Visa indicates that more than 70% of Latin American consumers have already integrated AI into their shopping journeys in some capacity.

As consumer behaviour shifts, agentic commerce is poised to become a reality in 2026, reshaping how people discover, verify and buy.

“The pilot with Santander marks a defining moment for commerce in Latin America.

Through Visa Intelligent Commerce, we're laying the foundation for AI-driven transactions that are secure, seamless and built for scale – ensuring every player in the ecosystem is ready for what comes next,” says Catalina Tobar, Head of Growth Products and Partnerships for Visa Latin America and the Caribbean.

By validating key elements such as consent capture, secure data handling and interoperability across merchants, the two financial giants are moving the concept from a theoretical stage into a functional reality.

Consent, control and credentials in the AI era

A primary focus of the collaboration was ensuring that consumers remain in control of the automated process. The pilot validated the entire journey, from the moment a user grants permission to the final settlement of the payment.

By using credentials from five distinct markets, the teams proved that AI agents can operate within defined consent parameters to initiate payments on behalf of individuals.

As the fintech sector prepares for these technologies to become a standard reality in 2026, the focus remains on interoperability between different payment networks and merchants.

The success of these book and chocolate purchases suggests that the technical groundwork is now in place for more complex retail applications.