Agents Are Getting Wallets: New Payment Rails Let AI Pay Per Request With No API Key

A cluster of launches this weekend — from a 'Know-Your-Agent' payment layer to HTTP 402-based pay-per-request billing — marks the quiet buildout of financial infrastructure designed for autonomous agents rather than humans.

The agent economy is starting to look less like a chat interface and more like a payments network. Over the weekend, several projects surfaced that share a common premise: AI agents will need to spend money on their own, and the infrastructure for that has to be built from scratch. Solowin launched AGENPAY, described by @2Workly as a "Know-Your-Agent" layer for AI payments — an explicit analog to the Know-Your-Customer compliance regimes that govern human finance.

Unlock the full briefing

Get every story in today's briefing, the full archive, and the daily AI intelligence brief.

All stories today

Full archive

Daily brief

Cancel anytime. Payments powered by Stripe.