Baidu AI Cloud and FluxA explore trusted payments with support from Visa Intelligent Commerce.
On September 20, at the Shenzhen stop of Baidu AI Cloud’s Super Agent Conference, Baidu AI Cloud and FluxA announced plans to jointly advance real-world applications of Agent Spend, FluxA’s payment solution for AI agent workflows.
The solution combines resource and spending decisions supported by Baidu’s Famou with trusted payment capabilities from Visa Intelligent Commerce. It enables eligible AI agents to autonomously discover, purchase, and manage the model tokens, APIs, data, and computing resources they need to complete tasks, within the scope of user authorization.
Robert Pei, Global Vice President, Visa
How Agent Spend works
Within this framework, Baidu Famou guides resource selection. When an agent working on software development, customer service, or operational analysis needs additional model tokens, APIs, data, or compute, Famou can assess the task and select suitable resources based on performance, price, availability, and budget.
In software development, for example, the same task can be completed using different models and tools, each with different trade-offs in cost, speed, and quality.
Users define the task objectives, spending limits, and payment permissions in advance. Famou then evaluates the complexity of the coding task and its delivery requirements to determine which resources to use, how to combine them, and how to adjust resource allocation as the work progresses. The agent initiates purchases within those permissions, without requiring the user to compare options and manually approve each transaction.
Once the resources have been selected, FluxA translates those requirements into transactions and handles execution and settlement. Baidu AI Cloud supplies eligible digital goods, including model tokens, APIs, and data. Visa Intelligent Commerce supports the process with payment credentials, authentication, and payment controls to help ensure that transactions follow user authorizations and predefined rules.
Robert Pei introduces the Agent Spend solution.
Connecting spending to outcomes
This process allows each expenditure to be linked to a specific agent, task, resource, and outcome. Businesses can understand why a cost was incurred, what was purchased, and what the task achieved. That information can then be fed back into Famou to inform future resource selection and spending decisions.
The initial phase of the collaboration will focus on markets outside China. Baidu AI Cloud, Visa, and FluxA will continue exploring Agent Spend in real business settings, connecting task understanding, resource selection, authorized payments, resource delivery, and outcome feedback. The aim is to help businesses and developers expanding internationally access global payment capabilities and digital resources.
Perspectives on agentic commerce
Foyu Yuan said:
“As AI agents move beyond executing tasks to actively participating in commerce, tokens become more than a cost of model usage. They become an essential resource in the agent economy. Through token management, spending optimization, and intelligent decision-making, Baidu aims to help businesses and developers better manage the resources their agents use, making every call more controllable and efficient. We also want to explore how AI agents can move from taking action to creating value in a complete commercial cycle.”
Kevin Yang, Co-founder and CEO of FluxA, delivers a keynote address.
Kevin Yang, Co-founder and CEO of FluxA, said:
“AI agents are evolving from systems that process information and execute tasks into economic actors in their own right. When an agent starts autonomously accessing models, APIs, data, and software services, it needs more than the ability to pay. It needs to understand what authorization it is acting under, which task it is serving, what resources it should purchase, and whether that spending actually creates value. “Our goal is to enable every agent to use and manage funds safely within the boundaries set by people. We want agents to be able to spend—and to make every expenditure count. We are excited to explore this new infrastructure with Visa and Baidu AI Cloud, giving agents the ability to participate in commerce in a trusted and controlled way.”
Robert Pei, Head of Products, Greater China, Visa, said:
“As AI agents become more deeply involved in digital commerce, payments need to evolve from a one-time checkout experience into a trusted capability embedded in agent workflows. By bringing Visa Intelligent Commerce capabilities into this collaboration, we are helping businesses and developers exploring agentic commerce make agent-initiated payments more transparent, more controllable, and easier to manage.”