Trends and insights The Spending Shift

Visa delivers insights about changes in the payments landscape
10/15/2025

Just as plastic cards revolutionized consumer spending, today the digital movement of money is changing how and when people buy and redefining the motivations that drive those choices. Taps, tokenization, peer-to-peer transfers and digital wallets have made secure and seamless payments possible anytime, anywhere, in less than a blink of an eye. The barriers that once governed spending have all but disappeared and consumer spending habits are evolving.. Emerging forms of digital currency such as stablecoins have the potential to revolutionize the infrastructure of money movement and drive mainstream adoption of crypto.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating this transformation. Visa already powers 100+ products with AI to optimize payments, enhance security and enable new forms of commerce. But AI isn’t just behind-the-scenes anymore – it’s reimagining the shopping experience itself. Take agentic commerce for example, AI agents will be able to search, complete and return purchases on a customer’s behalf. Visa Intelligent Commerce will empower AI agents to deliver these personalized and secure shopping experiences for consumers at scale.

And right on the heels of innovation, are fraudsters leveraging technology and social engineering to exploit businesses and consumers. Criminals are using AI to mimic spending patterns, launch seasonal scams and deceive consumers with realistic fakes. Visa is fighting back with AI-powered fraud prevention that stops billions of dollars in fraud each year, helping to ensure that innovation and trust advance together.

Visa is staying ahead of consumer needs and building the infrastructure for the future of payments.

 

Introducing The Spending Shift

How people and businesses spend is being redefined in real time. The Spending Shift is Visa’s lens on that transformation.

Through insights, analysis and predictions, The Spending Shift captures the pulse of global commerce. It reveals the patterns emerging today and the signals of where payments are heading next.

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