Visa said on Thursday that it successfully completed hundreds of AI transactions as part of a pilot program that kicked off after the company’s product event in April.

The credit card issuer and rivals across the fintech industry are racing to build tools that allow consumers to task artificial intelligence agents with completing certain transactions.

“This is going to be the year we see an enormous amount of material adoption, and consumers really starting to get comfortable in a bunch of different agentic environments,” said Rubail Birwadker, Visa’s head of growth products and partnerships, in an interview.

AI is transforming the e-commerce experience for shoppers, changing how customers purchase and browse for goods.

Mastercard said in April it was testing a feature called Agent Pay that allows AI agents to shop online for customers. Amazon began testing a “Buy For Me” offering that same month, while PayPal and Perplexity have joined forces on agentic shopping tools. Earlier in December, a survey from Visa found that nearly half of U.S. shoppers are using AI with purchases.

While the data is limited, Birwadker said the tools could be useful for consistent purchases made by consumers or events like concert tickets.

Visa said it plans to launch pilot programs in Asia and Europe next year, and is working with over 20 partners on AI agent tools.

WATCH: Why Visa is moving deeper into stablecoins

The apprehension investors have surrounding Oracle has spilled over from manifesting in its stock price — which has fallen nearly 50% from its all-time high on Sept. 10 — to affecting its projects.

Asset management firm Blue Owl Capital reportedly pulled out from Oracle’s $10 billion data center project over unfavorable debt terms, according to the Financial Times, as concerns about the tech giant’s high level of debt mount.

The latest development adds fuel to worries that Oracle could delay the completion of data centers for OpenAI, which were first flagged by Bloomberg on Friday, though the cloud company has denied the report.

Shares of Oracle fell 5.4% Wednesday, putting its month-to-date losses more than 11%. They weighed down related names, such as Broadcom Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices.

As a result, major U.S. indexes fell. The S&P 500 retreated 1.16% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.47%, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.81% in its worst day in nearly a month.

Despite the recent pullback in artificial intelligence stocks, the Bank of America thinks “the AI trade may still have room to run into 2026” — with the important caveat that shares going up does not mean a bubble isn’t forming.

“In our view, such progression validates our thesis that a larger AI bubble continues to build,” analysts at Bank of America wrote.

The trouble, as always, is pinpointing the exact moment before the bubble pops — if that’s even possible.

— CNBC’s Jaures Yip contributed to this report.

Major U.S. indexes fall on AI weakness. The S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average had their fourth consecutive losing session. Asia-Pacific markets mostly slid Thursday. Japan’s Softbank lost around 3.7%, paring earlier losses, with the Nikkei 225 trading in the red.

China’s chipmakers are challenging Nvidia. MetaX Integrated Circuits, a Chinese semiconductor firm, soared nearly 700% in its market debut on Wednesday. It’s a sign of how investors are growing enthusiastic over Chinese chipmakers and their progress in catching up with Nvidia.

Netflix deal is ‘superior’ to Paramount’s, Warner Bros. says. Samuel Di Piazza, chair of the Warner Bros. board, separately told CNBC on Wednesday that the board would have appreciated more involvement from Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison’s father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.

U.S. approves arms sale to Taiwan, reportedly the biggest ever. The $11.15 billion transaction, which was given the green light on Thursday, reportedly comprises HIMARS rocket artillery systems, self-propelled howitzer systems and Javelin and TOW anti-tank missiles, according to Reuters.

[PRO] One chart is worrying Michael Burry. “The Big Short” investor pointed to a graphic produced by Wells Fargo that showed a phenomenon in U.S. households that has only happened twice before and preceded bear markets that “lasted years.”

Japanese tech stocks took a tumble on Thursday as AI infrastructure spending worries on Wall Street crossed the ocean into the Asian markets, with AI-related stocks declining.

Softbank Group Corp was among the top losers in the benchmark Nikkei 225, falling as much as 7.25%, with the index leading losses in Asia, down 1.23%. The group pared some losses and was last trading 3% lower.

This decline comes as the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 1.81% overnight, dragged by losses in Oracle, Broadcom, Nvidia and other AI plays.

The losses in Oracle came after the Financial Times reported on Wednesday that Blue Owl Capital’s plans to finance the cloud infrastructure company’s $10 billion Michigan data center had stalled. The company last week had refuted a report that said it had delayed some projects for AI major OpenAI to 2028.

Tech-focused SoftBank has seen sharp volatility in its stock over the past month as fears over AI-related spending have gripped the market.

At the start of the year, the group had revealed plans to invest $500 billion in AI infrastructure in the U.S. along with OpenAI, Oracle and other partners, and in September it announced five new U.S. AI data center sites under Stargate, OpenAI’s overarching AI infrastructure platform.

Other Japanese tech stocks also fell. Semiconductor equipment supplier Advantest, dropped as much as 5%. Counterparts Lasertec, Renesas Electronics and Tokyo Electron declined between 3% and 4%.

Jesper Koll, expert director at Tokyo-based financial services firm Monex Group, said much of what goes into data centers, power centers, and AI hardware enablers is “Made in Japan, and can only be made in Japan.” That makes Japanese tech, especially AI-related stocks more vulnerable to any worries around U.S. tech spending.

On Wednesday, Japan’s trade numbers showed that exports of electrical machinery jumped 7.4%, and semiconductor-related exports surged 13% year on year. Koll said the U.S.-led boom in tech spending was translating into growing exports of specialized machinery and equipment.

Losses were less pronounced in South Korean chip heavyweight Samsung Electronics at 0.93%, while SK Hynix reversed course to gain 0.73%. Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer, was marginally down.