KERNEL Lets Browser Agents Pay on Website Checkouts Without Exposing Card Data
KERNEL fills payment credentials in the browser without exposing them to the agent.
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KERNEL, the browser infrastructure company for AI agents, today announced the availability of agent payments, with integration partners, Stripe and Agentcard, which lets browser agents pay on merchants’ existing checkout pages without card numbers reaching the developer’s application or the agent’s model context.
Most merchants only accept payment through ordinary web checkouts. When agents use card details on websites, sensitive details can leak into its context, logs, and recordings, which risks pulling the agent into PCI DSS scope.
KERNEL runs the browser and controls how payment credentials are used. Vaults, a new primitive on KERNEL, grant an attached browser session permission to use a payment method without returning the credential to the developer or agent. KERNEL either fills the approved credential directly into the checkout or handles it at the network layer after browser egress. The merchant website does not need to integrate with KERNEL.
With Link by Stripe, the user approves a purchase within limits the developer sets, Link issues a one-use payment credential to KERNEL’s vault, and KERNEL’s fill operation delivers it directly into the attached checkout without returning its value to the application or agent.
“Many online tasks ultimately end in a payment. KERNEL gives agents a secure environment to complete those transactions,” said Steve Kaliski, principal software engineer at Stripe.
With Agentcard, KERNEL holds the matching checkout request at browser egress while Agentcard creates a merchant- and amount-bound authorization, gets user approval, and executes the payment. KERNEL then replays the processor response to the browser.
“Agentcard allows customers to buy using their cards instead of one-time cards,” said Karen Serfaty, co-founder and CEO of Agentcard.
Agent payments are available now on KERNEL. Setup is covered in the payments in browser agents guide and the vaults documentation.
About KERNEL
KERNEL is browser infrastructure for AI agents to use the internet. Agents buy things, run back-office operations and test apps on KERNEL cloud browsers designed for performance, reliability and scale, with identity, observability and agentic payments built in. KERNEL works with any agent harness or model and is trusted by more than 4,000 companies.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261110606274/en/
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