Visa launched its global Agentic Ready initiative in the UAE on Wednesday, catering to the regional market’s growing demand for advanced, AI-driven digital commerce. This introduction forms part of an expansive regional deployment of the Agentic Ready framework spanning Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (CEMEA). The program is structured to assist financial institutions in adapting to an emerging retail landscape where autonomous AI agents assist consumers by discovering, choosing, and executing purchases on their behalf, all while upholding the security, consumer control, and fraud protections built into the Visa network. During its inaugural phase, the initiative provides issuers with a controlled, production-grade environment to test and validate autonomous, agent-initiated transactions, enabling them to safely scale capabilities as market demand intensifies.
Demonstrating the maturity of the UAE’s digital payments sector, a prominent group of local financial institutions and fintech firms have already enrolled in the program. Participants include Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB), Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB), Al Ansari Exchange, Emirates Islamic, Emirates NBD, Mashreq, Tabby, Wio, and Ziina. Fadi Moukkadem, Visa’s Senior Vice President and Group Country Manager for the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar, noted a robust localized interest in utilizing AI to optimize daily commerce, emphasizing that the program provides partners with a pragmatic sandbox to build consumer confidence and prepare for the next transactional evolution. This strategic deployment complements the UAE’s overarching national objectives to foster a future-ready digital economy through modernized infrastructure, progressive regulatory frameworks, and a continuous transition toward a cashless society.
The launch coincides with joint research from Fast Company Middle East and Visa, which underscores a strong corporate appetite for autonomous commerce solutions in the region. The study revealed that nearly 60% of surveyed UAE enterprises are actively exploring or demonstrating strong interest in agentic commerce applications. Furthermore, local businesses view AI-driven transaction agents primarily as a mechanism for expansion rather than a cost-reduction strategy, with 33% of respondents prioritizing customer loyalty and retention, and 28% targeting direct revenue growth through the technology.
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