Google Teams Up With Coinbase to Bring Stablecoin Payments to AI Apps

Google is taking a step toward merging artificial intelligence (AI) and digital money, rolling out a new open-source protocol that lets AI applications send and receive payments, which includes support for stablecoins, digital tokens pegged to fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar, according to a press release.

To incorporate stablecoin rails, Google teamed up with U.S.-based crypto exchange Coinbase, which has been developing its own AI-integrated payments infrastructure.

The company also worked with the Ethereum Foundation and coordinated with more than 60 other organizations, including Salesforce, American Express, and Etsy, to cover traditional finance use cases.

The move builds on Google’s earlier work to establish a standard for “AI agents.” These digital agents may eventually handle complex tasks, such as negotiating mortgages or shopping for clothes, without direct human input.

In April, Google rolled out a protocol to standardize agent-to-agent communication. The latest update extends that framework into financial transactions, aiming to ensure payments are secure, interoperable, and executed with the human user’s intent in mind.

Google’s experiment demonstrates a growing trend of activity across the stablecoin market. USDC-issuer Circle’s oversubscribed IPO indicated investor appetite earlier this year, with some suggesting that stablecoins are a “monetary revolution in the making.”

Data from DefiLlama shows $289 billion worth of stablecoins are in circulation, a jump from $205 billion at the turn of the year.