Coinbase has unveiled a new product aimed at giving AI agents direct access to trading and payments, a move that reflects the company’s growing bet that autonomous software will play a larger role in financial activity online.

The new offering, called Coinbase for Agents, will initially let systems such as ChatGPT or Claude carry out crypto trades based on natural language commands. That means users could ask an AI agent to rebalance holdings, scan for opportunities, run a strategy or manage positions over time without entering each order manually.

The company said the tool is designed as a first step toward broader agent-led financial activity. Coinbase expects the product to expand beyond crypto into other asset classes, including stocks and prediction markets, though those capabilities are not available at launch.

Alongside the trading product, Coinbase introduced x402, a machine-to-machine payments protocol that allows AI agents to pay for digital goods and services on their own. That could include access to paid research, data APIs or computing resources. In practice, the system could let an agent buy information, use that information to inform trades and do so without a human signing in or approving each transaction.

Coinbase says this setup could eventually point toward a wider form of agentic commerce, where software tools browse the internet, compare options and complete purchases for people. The company framed the launch as part of a larger shift in how users may interact with the web and with financial services.

Lincoln Murr, Coinbase’s AI product lead, said the company believes agents need money to become more capable across the internet. He compared the current moment to the industry’s transition from desktop browsing to mobile use in the 2010s, arguing that agents could become the next main economic actors online.

The launch arrives during a surge of interest in AI agents, which have become one of the most closely watched themes in tech investing. At the same time, the crypto market remains relatively muted after a softer trading cycle, making Coinbase’s announcement a notable push into an environment that is not as frothy as the broader AI market.

Coinbase stands to gain in several ways if the tools see adoption. The company earns trading fees when agents execute crypto trades. On the payments side, it collects fees and spreads tied to movement in USDC, the stablecoin Coinbase uses as a settlement asset for agent transactions. It also benefits from higher activity on Base, its Layer 2 blockchain, which supports the infrastructure behind these transactions.

Murr said the x402 protocol, launched in May 2025, has already processed more than 100 million transactions. He added that about 157,000 agents have acted as buyers using the protocol over the past 30 days, according to x402scan.com.

Coinbase said it began to see strong demand for autonomous payments and that interest convinced the company that agents could become major financial actors across the internet. The launch suggests Coinbase sees AI not only as a consumer trend, but as a foundation for new forms of commerce and trading activity tied directly to its own products and network.

For now, Coinbase for Agents is focused on crypto transactions and digital payments. But the company’s roadmap points to a broader ambition: making AI agents a routine interface for buying, paying and investing online.