AI PAYMENT THREAT · AI AGENT OVERSPEND
Stop AI-agent overspend before payment
A model should never be able to reason its way around a user-approved spending cap.
Where the failure appears
Prices, quantities, taxes and fees can change after the user delegates a purchase. Natural-language instructions such as 'around $100' are unsafe unless converted into an explicit maximum.
Who needs the control
Any merchant, agent or payment platform allowing software to select products and execute purchases.
Execution-time response
- Record a numeric maximum and permitted currency.
- Send the final payable total to the pre-flight API.
- Block when the value exceeds the approved boundary.
- Return the exact variance in a machine-readable finding.
Relevant controls
Numeric maximum amountCurrency allowlistFinal-total comparisonFee-inclusive policyFail-closed parsingExact reason codes
What changes
The payment call never runs when the final total is outside the user's stated authority.
Reproduce the failure safely
Change a sample amount, seller, consent field or instruction and inspect the structured decision before integrating.
Test the threat free →