Mastercard Launches Conversational AI Payments as Growth Accelerates

That was the key trendline shared Thursday (July 31) by Mastercard leadership during the company’s second-quarter earnings call. The company is increasingly positioning itself not only as a transaction processor, but as an innovation and data-driven technology partner in an ecosystem shaped by interoperability, digital identity and agentic artificial intelligence (AI).

While Mastercard’s traditional payment network remains its engine — driven by global GDP growth and consumer spending — the company’s value-added services and solutions segment is emerging as a critical differentiator. That line saw 23% revenue growth (22% currency-neutral) for the most recent quarter, reflecting growing demand for cybersecurity, authentication, digital identity and fraud prevention tools.

One highlight: Mastercard Agent Pay, a service that leverages conversational AI to facilitate secure payments via contact centers or messaging platforms. This innovation marks Mastercard’s first direct play into agentic AI — a field defined by autonomous agents acting on behalf of users across digital ecosystems. This launch, alongside the expanded Mastercard Collection suite, reinforces its ambition to deliver “intelligence at the edge” of payment flows.

Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach underscored this pivot during the earnings call: “We are driving innovation across the stack — from enabling seamless interoperability to embedding AI for greater contextual relevance.”

He told investors agentic AI is not just hype but already helping enterprises manage payments.

See also: Mastercard Debuts Tools to Support Growing Embrace of Virtual Cards 

Volume Growth Across Segments

The payments technology company reported net revenue of $8.1 billion, a 17% increase year over year on a GAAP basis and 16% growth on a currency-neutral basis. Adjusted net income came in at $3.8 billion, up 13%, with adjusted earnings per share of $4.15, an increase of 16% compared to the same period last year.

Mastercard’s total gross dollar volume (GDV) grew 9% year over year on a local currency basis, reaching $2.6 trillion. U.S. GDV increased 6%, while outside of the U.S., GDV rose 10%, reflecting continued momentum in international markets.

Switched transactions grew by 10%, and cross-border volume increased by 15%, with strong contributions from both travel and non-travel-related spending. Notably, non-travel cross-border growth outpaced travel in the quarter.

The number of Mastercard- and Maestro-branded cards in circulation rose to 3.6 billion, a 6% increase from the prior year.

Behind the scenes, Mastercard continues to invest heavily in “multi-rail” capability — a strategic pivot designed to accommodate any payment type, any currency, on any rail. The company’s positioning as the “interoperability layer” is fast becoming its moat. Its services now extend beyond cards to include real-time payments (RTP), account-based payments, and blockchain-anchored use cases.

In essence, Mastercard is rearchitecting itself as an overlay network — one that can connect cards, bank accounts, wallets and decentralized finance assets while embedding compliance, fraud detection and tokenization into every layer.

This strategic stance is critical as real-time payment networks gain traction globally, particularly in India, Brazil and Southeast Asia. Mastercard’s investments in RTP clearing, ISO 20022 compatibility and API-first architecture ensure relevance in a future where value is exchanged across diverse instruments.

Read more: Mastercard Launches Program to Support Cybersecurity Startups 

Looking Ahead to AI, Identity and Open Ecosystems

The narrative emerging from this quarter suggests Mastercard is morphing from a pure-play network into a platform orchestrator. That means playing across authentication (e.g., biometric and behavioral ID), secure value transfer (multi-rail) and orchestration.

Mastercard noted several strategic updates in the quarter, including renewing its exclusive co-brand agreement with American Airlines, highlighting a key portfolio win, as well as launching new solutions under the “Mastercard Collection” and “Agent Pay” brands, enhancing capabilities in secure payment processing and digital experiences.

With launches like Agent Pay, Mastercard is planting flags in the agentic AI landscape, a space where autonomous agents may one day initiate and authorize payments on a user’s behalf. This will demand new governance models, embedded ethics and real-time compliance — a domain where Mastercard already has enterprise-grade tools.

The company’s neutral stance — as a layer sitting above banks, merchants, FinTechs and regulators — positions it as a trusted orchestrator amid growing complexity.