Cloudflare has introduced a tool that lets businesses charge AI agents in USDC, Circle’s dollar-pegged stablecoin. The feature is part of the company’s broader push into payment systems for AI agents and is designed to let an agent pay a small fee each time it accesses an online service.
The system is called the Monetization Gateway. Instead of forcing a human to sign up for a monthly subscription or enter a credit card number, it allows automated payments as agents browse the web and request services. Cloudflare said the tool is now in closed beta for eligible U.S.-based buyers and sellers.
The rollout builds on cloudflare.pay, which Cloudflare launched in August. That system lets AI agents prove they are acting on a user’s behalf and spend from a linked wallet. Rohin Lohe, product manager at Cloudflare, said the company will be 'ramping up features and users through the rest of the year, with plans to be widely available by early 2027.'
Cloudflare said the new tool will act as an intermediary between websites and the AI agents that visit them. When an agent requests information or a service, Cloudflare will show a price and grant access after payment clears. The process is automatic and does not require a person to enter card details or sign up for a monthly plan.
Behind the scenes, the system uses Coinbase’s x402 payment standard to verify payments. USDC transactions are settled on Base, Coinbase’s native blockchain network.
The move arrives as agentic commerce gains momentum. The idea centers on AI agents searching for products, making purchases, and handling payments for users. At the same time, stablecoins are being pitched as a natural fit for those payments. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire has been one of the most vocal proponents of that view. In 'The Agentic Economy,' a roughly 18,000-word essay published in July, Allaire envisioned a future in which AI agents increasingly carry out transactions for people and businesses using stablecoins as programmable money.
Other payments companies are moving in the same direction. MoonPay integrated its AI-enabled payment and wallet tool into Grok in May. Robinhood said customers could use AI agents to make purchases on their behalf with the Robinhood Gold credit card. Circle, Stripe, and Tempo have also announced tools intended to let AI agents hold funds or make payments.
Credit card networks are also trying to keep pace. In April 2025, Visa unveiled tools that let AI agents shop and pay for users without giving merchants their actual card numbers. That same month, Mastercard announced a program that lets verified agents make purchases within limits set by users.
The market has already voted on the direction of travel: the payments stack is being rebuilt for software, not just people. That may please platforms and stablecoin issuers, but it also raises a familiar question for the taxpayer and the broader market alike — who sets the rules when commerce becomes automated, fast, and increasingly invisible to the consumer.
Capital rewards clear rules. If stablecoins and card networks can make AI commerce cheaper and faster, businesses will adopt the tools that lower friction and improve productivity. But the pace of innovation will also test regulators, since the new plumbing of online payments is now moving straight into the hands of autonomous software.
