Inside Google’s New AP2Framework: Building Payment Agents with AI

As AI agents become more capable of acting on users’ behalf, handling payments securely is a growing concern. Google’s recently announced Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) aims to set the standard. This open protocol establishes trust, security, and compliance for agent-initiated payments, letting businesses build payment agents that users and merchants alike can rely on.

At Daily Solutions, this is a big step forward. Combined with our expertise in building custom agents using Google ADK and Integration Connectors, AP2 provides the framework to safely automate financial workflows.

Why AP2 Is Needed

When agents start initiating payments on behalf of users, assumptions built into traditional payment systems—like a person clicking “buy”—aren’t always valid. AP2 addresses critical challenges around:

• Authorization: Making sure the user has explicitly granted the agent permission for a specific transaction.

• Authenticity: Ensuring that what the agent is doing truly matches what the user intended.

• Accountability: Making sure there’s a traceable record and remedy for what the agent did, especially if something goes wrong.

  
  

The goal: avoid a fragmented ecosystem of payments done in different, possibly insecure ways. AP2 gives a consistent foundation.

How AP2 Works: Key Components

AP2 introduces a few building blocks that enable safe, verifiable payments by agents:

• Mandates: These are cryptographically signed, tamper-proof digital contracts. They act as proof of the user’s intent and the agent’s authority for a payment transaction.

• Verifiable Credentials (VCs): These credentials are used to sign mandates, proving identity or authority in a secure way.

• Intent Mandate vs. Cart Mandate:

  • Intent Mandate captures what the user wants: e.g. “Buy item X when it’s available.”

  • Cart Mandate is the finalized set of items / price to be paid, created once the conditions are met.

• Support for different payment types: AP2 isn’t limited to credit cards. It includes real-time transfers, stablecoins, and more.

  
  

These components work together to create an audit trail: from user intent → agent’s action → finalized purchase — so both users and merchants have clarity.

Real-World Possibilities

Here are some example scenarios that show what AP2 empowers:

• Price-watch purchase: A user tells their agent to buy a product when its price drops by a certain percentage. The agent monitors, then executes securely under a Cart Mandate.

• Custom merchant offers: An agent and merchant agent collaborate. The user’s agent passes along preferences (e.g. discounts for bundles), the merchant responds programmatically.

• Autonomous travel booking: For example, booking flight + hotel once criteria (budget, dates) are all satisfied. AP2 supports a chain of authentication and signed mandates so those transactions are secure.

What AP2 Means for Businesses & SMEs

For companies building agents, or considering integrating agents with financial processes, AP2 can unlock:

• Better trust from customers and partners

• Reduced risk of fraud and disputes

• Easier compliance with financial regulation

• More seamless automation for financial tasks like invoicing, payments, refunds

  
  

Especially for SMEs, AP2 provides a path to leverage automation without sacrificing security.

How Daily Solutions Can Help

We build custom agents with Google ADK + Integration Connectors, so you don’t need to start from scratch. With AP2 in the mix, we can design agents that:

• Follow your business rules for payments

• Generate and manage mandates for authorization

• Integrate with payment providers and verify credentials

• Provide a secure, auditable, automated payment flow

  
  

If you’re interested in exploring payment-agent automation powered by AP2, we’d love to help.