As the tech industry mobilizes around AI agents, some companies are developing capabilities to allow AI agents to make payments and trade stocks on behalf of users.
Stock trading app Robinhood is also moving in that direction: The company said Wednesday that it is launching support for AI agent trading, as well as a new agent credit card.
Robinhood said users of its platform can now create a separate account for its AI agents and connect them to a dedicated wallet. While these agents would be able to read and analyze users’ portfolios to devise trading strategies and suggest investments, they will only be able to access the preloaded balance in the dedicated wallet to place orders.
Users will receive notifications of all transactions made by their AI broker and will be able to monitor their activities within the Robinhood app. For some trades, agents will display a preview that users must approve before the order is executed. The company said it has also built in fraud detection protection, where a Robinhood team would review suspicious trades and help users resolve disputes.
Robinhood says users can connect its AI agents to its Model Context Protocol (MCP) service to do things like analyze concentration risk and sector exposure, execute trades, or consult analyst notes to identify new investment opportunities across various sectors.
The agent trading feature is launching in beta and only allows stock trading at this time. The company says it plans to soon add support for options, cryptocurrencies, event contracts, futures and prediction markets.
Robinhood is also introducing a new virtual credit card intended to be used by AI agents. With this card, users can connect their AI agents to the company’s banking MCP server to allow them to make payments.
Currently, the virtual card is only available to Robinhood Gold cardholders, who can link their account to this new card.
Users can set monthly limits on this virtual card and can choose whether their AI agent should seek approval every time they make a payment. The company said its Robinhood Platinum card will also receive support for a similar virtual card and agent feature when it launches later this year.
Robinhood has been ramping up its efforts in artificial intelligence over the past few years. The company acquired Pluto, AI-powered research platform in 2024and last year added an AI assistant that offers investment advice.
“We’ve heard a lot of demand from our customers to bring their own tools, LLM and agents, and connect them to Robinhood. That’s why we’re launching our new products,” Abhishek Fatehpuria, Robinhood’s vice president of product, told TechCrunch during a call.
Robinhood isn’t the only one allowing AI agents to make payments, with major players like Stripe, Amazon, Googleand startups like Prava Pay create products that give AI agents the ability to buy things on behalf of users.
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