AWS, Coinbase and Stripe enable AI agents to pay in USDC

Amazon Web Services, Coinbase and Stripe announced AgentCore Payments on Thursday, a system that lets autonomous software agents pay in USDC on the Base and Solana networks. The feature is built into Amazon Bedrock’s AgentCore framework and is designed to automate small payments while agents carry out tasks.

AgentCore Payments uses Coinbase’s x402 open protocol together with Coinbase wallet infrastructure and Stripe-owned Privy wallet technology. The integration allows agents to pay for APIs, data feeds, web content, managed compute and paywalled content without developers adding separate billing code for each service connection. Amazon said it will add support for additional payment protocols at the platform level over time.

“AgentCore is designed to work with any framework and any protocol. We’ve carried that same flexibility into Amazon Bedrock AgentCore Payments. Developers don’t have to track the evolving payment protocol landscape or lock into a single standard,” (Preethi CN, director of AgentCore at AWS).

Coinbase reported that the x402 protocol has processed more than 169 million machine-native payments across about 590,000 buyers and 100,000 sellers. The company said transactions settle in roughly 200 milliseconds when using USDC on Base and on Solana.

The initial release targets micropayments for APIs, AI tools, managed compute and paywalled content. Amazon said future updates could enable agents to carry out broader commerce tasks, such as booking flights, reserving hotel rooms and completing purchases across merchant platforms.

Other companies are building similar infrastructure. The Solana Foundation and Google Cloud launched a gateway called Pay.sh that connects agents to backend services through the x402 standard. The x402 protocol was incubated at Coinbase and has moved to stewardship under the Linux Foundation. Payment firms have also introduced consumer tools tied to agent payments, including a debit card product that allows agents to spend stablecoins at online merchants.

Enterprises continue to raise legal and compliance questions about agent-driven payments. “Enterprises have been telling us the same thing: They want agents that can transact, but they can’t get past legal and compliance review,” (Brian Foster, head of infrastructure growth at Coinbase). He added that the AWS integration provides a managed path for developers to give agents payment capabilities.

A recent study by the Bitcoin Policy Institute found that AI models in simulated scenarios often preferred Bitcoin and stablecoins over fiat currencies. Providers building payments rails into agent frameworks will face decisions about regulatory oversight, custody arrangements and audit trails before many companies deploy agents with autonomous spending power.