Link is a digital wallet designed to facilitate the AI economy, allowing users to pay quickly and securely across a wide range of online businesses. Built by Stripe, Link enables users to store payment methods, billing addresses, and shipping details for accelerated checkout experiences. Beyond simple payments, Link integrates with AI agents, enabling users to grant permission for their AI agents to make purchases on their behalf within controlled parameters. Users maintain oversight by reviewing and approving individual spend requests, ensuring that payment credentials are never directly exposed to the agent or the underlying AI platforms. The service supports a diverse array of payment methods, including credit cards, debit cards, bank accounts, and digital assets. Link provides robust purchase protections, including coverage for loss, theft, damage, price drops, and return shipping fees for eligible transactions. It also offers tools for managing digital subscriptions, providing a central dashboard to view, update, and track renewals for various services. Some of the key features are: - Accelerated Checkout: Autofill payment and shipping details across more than a million businesses to complete purchases in seconds. - Agent Wallet Controls: Enable AI agents to perform transactions on your behalf using one-time-use cards or shared tokens with mandatory user approval. - Subscription Management: Centralize the management of digital subscriptions, including payment method updates and renewal tracking. - Purchase Protections: Access 90 days of coverage on eligible physical and digital purchases, including return shipping and price drop protection. - Multi-Asset Support: Seamlessly switch between cards, bank accounts, crypto wallets, and buy now, pay later options. - Secure Data Handling: Utilize encrypted storage for sensitive payment and identity information in compliance with high security standards. - Real-time Notifications: Receive instant alerts when an AI agent requests a purchase, allowing for immediate approval or decline. Link operates as a secure intermediary layer, connecting the user’s personal payment methods with merchants and AI agents. For standard web checkouts, it functions by recognizing the user via cookies or passkeys to securely retrieve saved information. In the context of AI agent commerce, Link provides an authentication mechanism where agents are granted access to execute specific transactions. The system tracks all activity, providing a detailed transaction history that allows users to monitor spending patterns and agent behavior. Some common use cases include: - Optimized E-commerce: Using Link to speed up the checkout process at online retailers without manually entering credit card information. - AI Agent Automation: Allowing an AI travel assistant to book a hotel room or flight on your behalf after you approve the specific transaction amount. - Subscription Oversight: Using the Link dashboard to monitor recurring charges for services like streaming, software, or educational platforms. - Secure Agentic Payments: Providing a controlled budget to a custom research agent to purchase datasets or cloud resources for project needs.