Cashfree has launched Checkout for Agents, a payment system that allows artificial intelligence agents to select payment options and complete checkout steps on behalf of users, marking what the company describes as India’s first use of the Web MCP standard by a payments company.
The platform said the system is designed for AI agents that shop or search according to rules set by users, including price limits, payment preferences and the products or services they are authorised to find. Users can also require manual intervention before a transaction is finalised.
The potential use cases include grocery purchases, travel bookings and other digital transactions. Cashfree co-founder Reeju Datta said in a statement shared with Hindustan Times that customers who begin shopping through AI agents tend to continue using them, creating a growing need for merchants to support agent-led checkouts.
“People who start shopping through AI agents tend to keep using them, and that habit is forming quickly,” Datta said. “For merchants, this means a growing share of customers will arrive at checkout through an agent.”
Web MCP is a browser-native web standard that allows websites to make structured JavaScript functions and declarative HTML tools available directly to AI agents. Cashfree said this enables agents to select payment options and fill form fields through structured inputs, potentially without requiring a separate authentication page.
The company said Web MCP can potentially reduce the number of tokens needed by AI agents to complete a checkout by more than 40%. Cashfree also said AI agents can consume as many as two million tokens during a single checkout when navigating websites designed primarily for human users, because they must interpret the purpose of individual buttons and fields.
Cashfree said Checkout for Agents has been automatically enabled for all merchants on its platform and does not require a separate integration. Its stated aim is to allow merchants to accept purchases initiated through AI agents without changing their existing payment integration.
Datta said Cashfree had spoken to more than 50 founders building AI agents before adopting Web MCP as a way to address checkout difficulties across its merchant network. The company’s payment services are used by platforms including Nykaa, Zepto, CRED, Primebook, Tata Cliq and Ixigo, according to the report.
The move comes as payment companies increasingly develop systems for what is being called agentic commerce. Razorpay chief operating officer Rahul Kothari previously told Hindustan Times that commerce was being re-architected. Razorpay has enabled an Agentic Payments feature with Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and later added Sarvam’s models for conversational checkout.
Mastercard has also demonstrated authenticated agentic commerce transactions in India in collaboration with AI developers, fintech companies and merchants at the India AI Impact Summit. Juniper Research estimates that purchases made using AI agents could be worth around $1.5 trillion globally by 2030.
Cashfree’s launch places the checkout layer at the centre of this emerging payment model. The company’s system is intended to let users retain control through transaction rules and approval flags while allowing AI agents to handle the navigation and form-filling required before payment.
