Digital asset custody and wallet provider Cobo becomes the latest web3 payment provider to join Google’s AI Agent payment protocol, with a live demo coming in 2026.
Summary
- Singapore-based Cobo has joined Google’s Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) community, an open payment standard enabling AI agents to conduct secure, verifiable transactions on behalf of users.
- Cobo plans to launch AP2-based applications with a live demo in February 2026, leveraging its institutional custody expertise to power autonomous payment systems.
In a recent post shared on Oct. 21, Singapore-based Cobo announced that it has joined Google’s network of partners involved in the Agent Payments Protocol community, or AP2. The project is an open payment standard introduced by Google for the AI agent economy, expanded from the agent-to-agent communication protocol.
For the project, Google has announced collaborations with more than 60 organizations recognized as partners to adopt AP2, consisting of payment firms, merchants, and tech companies. The list already includes major industry players such as MetaMask, Coinbase (BASE), the Ethereum Foundation (ETH), and Circle (USDC). Not only that, major payment firms like Mastercard, American Express, and PayPal are also mentioned as partners.
According to the official description, Google’s Agent Payments Protocol is an open-standard protocol launched by the tech giant. It is designed to enable secure, verifiable payments initiated by AI agents on behalf of users. This means that users will soon be able to execute payment services with the help of autonomous agents.
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Cobo’s vision for Google’s AP2
According to the official announcement, Cobo plans to release a series of practical applications based on the AP2 framework with a live demo scheduled for February 2026. The firm seemed to hint at emerging technologies that could result from Google’s AP2, which could range from autonomous treasury bots, self-running DeFi strategies, to systems that could enable users to buy compute on demand.
Given Cobo’s background in institutional custody solutions, the firm could be expected to contribute by providing back-end infrastructure that AP2 needs for secure, auditable payments by agents.
Overall, the AP2 protocol is designed to enable AI-agents to initiate and execute payments on behalf of users, with user authorization, verifiable intent, and a clear audit trail. On the side of web3 and crypto, Google’s AP2 could accelerate web3 payments and new business models, such as micro-payments and agent-to-agent service payments, as part of the digital economy.
So far, the ecosystem spans multiple domains, including payments networks, merchant platforms, AI-agent developers, web3, and crypto infrastructure. For example, the x402 extension enables agent-to-agent crypto payments via stablecoins in collaboration with Coinbase.
Back in March 2025, Cobo entered a partnership with Core to bring dual Bitcoin (BTC) staking solutions into the ecosystem. Through the integration, Cobo users can start staking both Bitcoin and CORE tokens to earn Bitcoin-generated yields.
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