Financial services platform Stripe has unveiled a digital wallet designed specifically for the AI era, enabling autonomous agents to handle tasks like shopping, making reservations, buying tickets, and more. At its annual conference this week, the company introduced Link—a wallet that lets you connect various payment methods, monitor your spending, and view your recurring subscriptions. It also allows you to integrate your AI agents so they can make secure purchases on your behalf. Available on the web, iOS, and Android, Link offers many features you'd expect from a digital wallet. You can link payment methods, including cards, bank accounts, crypto wallets, and buy now/pay later services, as well as store essential details for online checkout like billing and shipping information. The wallet also provides handy extras, such as tracking your spending, managing recurring subscriptions, and even updating payment methods for those services as needed. Additionally, it offers 90 days of protection on eligible purchases from select merchants. What truly sets Link apart, however, is its ability to work with autonomous AI agents, such as OpenClaw and others.

The number of people experimenting with autonomous AI has surged, to the point where Apple sold out of its base model Mac Minis—a popular platform for running these always-on AI agents. Yet, many (understandably) hesitate at the idea of giving an agent direct access to raw payment information, even if it offers convenience by automating various bookings. Link aims to address this concern, allowing users to connect their AI agents and grant them permission to pay without exposing sensitive payment credentials. To do this, users first authorize their agent to access the Link wallet through an OAuth (standard authentication) process. The agent can then generate a spend request, provide context, and wait for approval. Currently, this works with traditional payment methods, but Stripe says support for agentic tokens, stablecoins, and other payment types is coming "soon."

On mobile and web, users receive a notification to approve the spend request, requiring them to review the transaction before the payment credential is shared with the AI agent. In the future, Stripe plans to expand its controls so users can set their own spending limits or even choose when their agents can act without approval. The wallet is built on Stripe's new Issuing for agents, which allows users to create virtual cards for agents to use autonomously, with real-time authorization, spending controls, and full transaction visibility. Instead of handing over payment credentials to an agent, users can either give agents programmatic access to Link—which provides a one-time-use card—or use a Shared Payment Token (SPT), which is backed by payment cards and banks. Developers and businesses building agents or AI personal assistants can also leverage Link's wallet rather than building their own from scratch, Stripe notes.