Launching today
CartAI
The AI agent that handles checkout.
706 followers
The AI agent that handles checkout.
706 followers
Checkout is the hard part, and most solutions clear it only where the merchant has integrated. CartAI completes checkout on any live merchant surface with no merchant-side work, cooperating with bot detection instead of evading it. One developer-first API, four products: Catalog (search and live pricing across merchants), Checkouts (clear and track orders to confirmation), Payments (PCI off your stack via Visa and Mastercard agent rails), Monetization (commissions on every agent sale).
What does the API hand back when a checkout dies halfway, after the payment authorizes but before the merchant confirms? Signed agent identity and the PCI rails cover the happy path, and that half looks genuinely solved here, it's the money-moved-but-no-confirmation case where every agentic checkout story I've read goes quiet.
CartAI
@vollos
Great question. This is actually where Agentic Payments differ from traditional payment flows.
With models like Visa Intelligent Commerce (VIC) and Mastercard Agent Pay (MAP), the customer grants the AI agent permission to transact up to a predefined amount under specific constraints. The customer isn't charged upfront.
CartAI uses that grant (authorization) to complete the merchant's checkout journey. The actual transaction only occurs when the merchant successfully processes the order, just as it would on the merchant's own website.
Throughout the checkout lifecycle, CartAI continuously publishes order state changes via Webhooks, allowing developers to build custom workflows for retries, notifications, reconciliation, or any post-checkout automation if an issue occurs.
Combined with our self-healing checkout orchestration, this ensures developers have both visibility into every checkout state and the flexibility to respond programmatically whenever needed.
@kunalmestri9 The grant model dissolves most of it, if nothing settles until the merchant processes, the half-dead case shrinks to the auth hold itself. One loose end though: a merchant that never confirms leaves that pending amount sitting on the customer's card until something releases it. How fast does CartAI let go of the hold in that case?
CartAI
@vollos We never hold funds on the card as an authorization. The card is converted to an agentic token via Visa and Mastercard and entered directly on the merchant website at checkout. The flow is no different than if the consumer went to a website and placed a direct order.
@manil_uppal If the token gets entered directly on the merchant's site like a live card number, is it scoped to that one checkout, locked to the order amount and single-use, or could it be reused for a second charge if the merchant's system holds onto it after the sale?
CartAI
@new_user___1802026258df93399c32311
Thanks! That's a great question Lyra.
I actually think the biggest challenge has been something else: the absence of a transaction layer for AI.
Because a platform like CartAI didn't exist, AI experiences have largely been limited to discovery, recommendations, and product comparisons.
They could generate purchase intent, but they couldn't reliably convert that intent into a completed transaction.
That has also limited how many AI-native applications think about monetization. Without the ability to complete a purchase, they stop at engagement instead of delivering outcomes.
We believe CartAI changes that. By giving AI applications a trusted checkout layer, they can evolve from being recommendation engines into commerce platforms that take users all the way from search to purchase.
As users begin experiencing reliable, secure, and transparent AI checkouts, their confidence in letting AI transact on their behalf will naturally grow. Trust isn't built by asking users to believe, it's built by consistently delivering successful outcomes
For us, the real opportunity isn't just doing checkout, it's finally allowing AI to convert intent into outcomes.
Interesting, how are you handling payment failures ? Also, how do you handle websites blocking such AI bots (ex: cloudflare turnstile) ?
CartAI
@vinitvr
Bot mitigation relies on establishing verifiable agent identity using industry-standard protocols and implementations, enabling merchant websites to identify CartAI as a trusted agent and whitelist our traffic.
In case of payment authorization failure, the entire transaction is aborted. Additionally, the product provides robust handling for various other payment-related failure scenarios.
Nice Lanuch! How do you handle the nasty middle state where the card gets charged but the confirmation page times out or never comes back? Curious how you guarantee idempotency and reconciliation there, and how the final state a caller receives distinguishes "order actually placed" from "charged but the merchant has no record of it.
CartAI
@iamyuhanliu
Great question.
The key thing is that CartAI never charges the customer's card itself.
The payment is still processed by the merchant through their existing payment provider, just as it is today.
CartAI uses Visa Intelligent Commerce (VIC) and Mastercard Agent Pay to obtain permission to spend using agentic payment tokens (agentic PANs).
The merchant processes these tokens like a normal payment credential, while the Card Network handles the mapping to the customer's actual card.
If a confirmation page times out after payment, that's not unique to Agentic Commerce, it's the same scenario merchants already handle today. Their payment gateway, order system, and the card networks remain the source of truth for whether a payment was authorized and whether an order was created.
CartAI simply works within that existing ecosystem rather than introducing a new payment flow or reconciliation model.
@kunalmestri9 Thanks for the detailed explanation, appreciate it!
The no-merchant-integration approach is impressive! How does CartAI handle last-minute price, shipping, or product changes before payment—and when does it ask for explicit user approval?
CartAI
@ram_sarjal
Great question. We've intentionally split the flow into three distinct stages:
Product Discovery
Cost Estimation
Checkout
During the Cost Estimation stage, we calculate the expected total, including the product price, shipping, taxes, and other applicable charges based on the user's address.
In most cases, these values remain stable through checkout.
Minor variations can still occur—particularly in shipping costs during peak periods. That's why we recommend developers authorize the agent with a 5–10% spending buffer to accommodate small changes.
If the final amount exceeds the approved grant, the checkout simply fails. The agent cannot spend beyond the user's authorized limit, ensuring spending always remains within the consumer's explicit approval.
Onpilot
CartAI
@nischaydhiman
Thanks for the question!
Before the checkout begins, two important things happen:
The customer provides explicit confirmation before the agent starts the checkout.
That confirmation includes a spending grant, which specifies the maximum amount the agent is authorized to spend for that particular order.
Payment authorization happens later in the checkout flow. This means that if the checkout fails before the order is successfully placed, the customer's card is not charged. Charges are only captured when the merchant successfully accepts the order.
On Partial Checkouts
CartAI supports placing orders containing multiple SKUs, whether they belong to the same merchant or different merchants.
Our Create Checkout API includes a flag that lets developers choose whether all SKUs must be successfully purchased or whether a partial order is acceptable.
If the checkout is configured to require all SKUs and one or more items are unavailable, the entire order is aborted, and no charges are made to the customer's card.
"Cooperating with bot detection instead of evading it" is the smart call — the evasion arms race is unwinnable long-term. The part I'd worry about: an agent completing checkout on any live surface with no merchant integration is one wrong parse away from buying the wrong thing or the wrong quantity. What's the confirmation/guardrail before it actually pays? That's the line between useful and scary. Congrats on the launch.
CartAI
@david_marko
We completely agree, that's exactly why we don't believe AI should make unchecked purchasing decisions. CartAI requires explicit consumer authorization for agentic payment, and merchants remain in control of how agent checkouts are handled.
Trust isn't just about getting through checkout; it's about making every purchase intentional, auditable, and aligned with merchant policies.