WeChat Pay plans to launch 'AI Exclusive Card,' as Alipay, UnionPay, JD.com all make intensive AI payment moves on same day

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According to sources close to the situation, WeChat Pay is testing an AI payment feature in collaboration with Tencent’s AI agent product, WorkBuddy. It plans to launch an “AI Exclusive Card” in the WeChat Wallet, which could be rolled out as early as this week. The card’s spending limit is determined by the user’s deposit amount, and any payment initiated by the AI agent must be confirmed by the user via password verification. Funds are designated for specific purposes, and the authorization scope can be managed at any time. WeChat Pay had not responded by the time of publication. On the same day, June 16, the AI-powered version of Alipay, “A-Bao,” was officially launched, leveraging a conversational interface to access tens of thousands of lifestyle services. It has been positioned as the world’s first fully-fledged AI-driven super app. UnionPay Business, based on China UnionPay’s APOP protocol, has also launched an AI payment product, already deployed in three high-frequency scenarios: campus meal pre-ordering, cloud payment, and AI ordering. JD Technology, meanwhile, released the industry’s first autonomous payment protocol for AI agents, A2P2, which adopts a grading system similar to autonomous driving from L0 to L5, with L5 representing fully autonomous payment. Industry insiders pointed out to Cailianshe that the current state of “payment + AI” is still in its early stages — the core functionality remains the AI’s front-end orchestration of existing payment systems, completing the “inquiry → selection → checkout → payment” chain, but with human oversight still playing a significant role. Wang Pengbo, a senior analyst at the financial advisory firm Botong Consulting, believes that the convergence of front-end interactions will not fundamentally shake up the industry landscape. The real differentiating factors remain the underlying clearing networks, merchant coverage, regulatory compliance, and end-to-end risk management. Looking ahead, AI payments will expand toward intelligent risk control, autonomous transaction decision-making by AI agents, and full-scenario intelligent clearing. On the regulatory front, the industry must adhere to four boundaries: properly licensed operations, security safeguards (with manual confirmation retained for high-value transactions), scenario-specific adaptation, and data access permissions. Both Ant Group and JD.com have already published constraint agreements governing AI agent behavior. Source: Cailianshe