Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has congratulated Coinbase for its role in powering Google's new agentic payments system, calling open collaboration the key to building an AI-native financial ecosystem.
"Great to see this Brian! The best way to build the agent ecosystem is open and together. Congrats to @coinbase for extending its x402 protocol to AP2," Pichai posted on X.
His remarks came after Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong revealed that Google's new Agentic Payments Protocol (AP2) integrates Coinbase's x402 protocol to provide stablecoin rails for AI agents.
"x402 + @Google just unlocked a new level for AI agents. Agents can actually pay each other now, with x402 powering the stablecoin rail inside Google's new Agentic Payments Protocol (AP2). Really cool," Armstrong wrote.
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What's new
AP2 is designed to allow AI "agents", specialized algorithms for tasks like shopping or financial advising to safely transfer funds between one another. The open-source system supports credit and debit cards as well as stablecoins, and was developed with the help of Coinbase, the Ethereum Foundation, American Express, Salesforce and more than 60 other firms.
James Tromans, Google's head of Web3, said the payment system was built "from the ground up" to handle both legacy systems and upcoming capabilities such as stablecoins.
Erik Reppel, Coinbase's head of developer platform engineering, added that ensuring interoperability with Coinbase's payment mechanisms was a key priority in the collaboration.
Why it matters
The launch follows Google's April rollout of a protocol enabling AI agents to communicate with one another. With AP2, those same agents can now execute payments, a major step toward embedding stablecoins and blockchain into mainstream financial technology.
The debut also comes amid the GENIUS Act, which created the first federal framework for stablecoins in the United States, fueling adoption by major players like Circle and Tether. Coinbase Institutional projects the stablecoin market could expand to $1.2 trillion by 2028.
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This story was originally reported by TheStreet on Sep 16, 2025, where it first appeared in the MARKETS section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
