Cloudflare projects automated agent traffic will outnumber human traffic in five years, creating a need for micropayment platforms scaling from 10 million to 100 million transactions per second. Visa’s network capacity of 18,000 transactions per second underscores a strategic opportunity to upgrade payment rails for AI-driven microtransactions.
Automated agent traffic recently surpassed human internet traffic and is projected to grow a thousandfold within five years, fundamentally shifting how information and transactions flow online. This surge will require new payment systems capable of handling vastly higher volumes of microtransactions.
Visa’s global network processes about 18,000 transactions per second, a benchmark far below the 10 million transactions per second estimated as day-one demand for AI-driven micropayments. This disparity highlights a capacity gap that could limit Visa’s role in supporting next-generation online commerce.
To capture AI-driven transaction volume, Visa may need to develop or acquire technology enabling microtransactions at tens of millions of operations per second. Expanding into a marketplace for content access fees and agent-directed ads could open significant new revenue streams and reinforce Visa’s infrastructure leadership.
