The rise of agentic commerce: what it means for payment providers.

By Emily Beeby (Engagement Manager) and Nicky Cockerill (Consultant) 

The future of commerce is arriving faster than many expected and – you’ll never guess what - it’s autonomous.

Recent moves by the payment industry’s biggest players signal a fundamental shift in how transactions will be initiated, executed, and experienced in the future. Visa has launched its Intelligence Commerce platform. Mastercard is piloting Agent Pay. Stripe has released its Order Intents API. And PayPal is introducing an Agentic Toolkit. These announcements reflect a growing momentum behind a once-niche concept...agentic commerce.

When industry giants align behind an emerging trend, it’s often a sign of where things are headed. In this case, the shift is being driven by an opportunity to meet a very real and urgent customer need.

Why agentic commerce is gaining traction

Today’s digital shoppers expect fast, seamless, intuitive, and increasingly automated experiences. According to Visa, 84% of European consumers abandon online purchases, with friction at checkout among the top reasons¹. But the issue goes deeper. Salesforce’s Connected Shoppers Report found that 84% of consumers expect a seamless experience across app, web, and store, yet 29% say brands still fail to deliver².

Agentic commerce (where AI agents act on behalf of consumers to make purchases) is emerging as a powerful solution to this issue. And while some remain sceptical about users handing over their payment credentials to machines, consumer behaviour is changing fast. As Harvard Business Review notes, therapy and companionship are among the top use cases for ChatGPT in 2025³. While the risks may differ, if people are comfortable confiding their most personal thoughts to AI, is it really such a leap to trust it with a credit card?

What exactly is agentic commerce?

Agentic commerce allows autonomous digital agents to complete end-to-end purchasing on behalf of a user - right down to selecting the product, entering details, and initiating payment. These agents rely on user preferences, past behaviours, and real-time context to make intelligent, proactive decisions.

But agentic commerce isn’t just about convenience. It’s a vehicle for increased conversion, deeper personalisation, and greater satisfaction. And leading companies are already proving its potential.

How it works and why it delivers

1. Cutting steps from the checkout journey

Google’s “Buy for me” feature, part of its new AI Mode, allows agents to track user preferences (like size, colour, or price) and then complete the checkout using Google Pay, eliminating multiple manual steps⁴. They're even sending users directly from ads to checkout, boosting conversion value by 11%⁵.

Amazon’s own “Buy for me” lets users request purchases via agentic AI for items outside of the Amazon marketplace - again, creating a smooth, uninterrupted flow⁶.

Perplexity’s “Buy with Pro” feature offers one-click checkout directly in chat, as long as payment and shipping details are stored. It shortens the distance from discovery to decision⁷.

2. Personalising and automating the entire experience

Google AI Mode can now surface product suggestions based on context like location or weather and alert customers when price conditions are met⁸. Stripe’s toolkit supports embedded financial services and agent-triggered actions like issuing refunds or creating links within chat flows⁹.

3. Removing friction from authentication

Tokenisation is enabling secure, seamless purchasing without repeated credential entry. The schemes are combining this technology with their agentic commerce product offerings to enable AI-driven shopping: Mastercard’s “Agentic Tokens” allow users to embed spending limits and merchant rules¹⁰, while Visa’s Intelligence Commerce leverages network tokenisation to delegate spend safely to AI agents¹¹.

The challenges and what to watch out for

With every breakthrough comes associated risk and agentic commerce is no exception.

The expansion of AI agents broadens the fraud and security attack surface. Autonomous tools with access to sensitive payment and personal data can be manipulated. For example, Stanford student Kevin Liu managed to prompt Bing Chat to reveal proprietary instructions¹², demonstrating how easily well-intentioned AI can be subverted.

In this context, the payment industry must evolve from KYC to KYA (Know Your Agent).

Companies like Skyfire are already helping businesses verify agents before granting them transactional access¹³. Shopify, meanwhile, has taken a stricter route - introducing code to block scraping and unauthorised “buy-for-me” flows that bypass user review¹⁴.

The broader industry must also work toward standardised and verified agent frameworks. Without common standards, trust will be hard to build - especially as payment providers, merchants, and tech platforms all develop their own proprietary agents.

What this means for payment providers

Agentic commerce has the potential to completely reshape how consumers interact with brands, and how payments are handled behind the scenes. For payment providers, this is both an opportunity and a challenge.

To stay relevant, they must:

• Enable frictionless delegation of spend via secure agent-friendly infrastructure

• Offer tools for merchants to optimise discoverability and agent accessibility (e.g., structured metadata, open APIs)

• Invest in agent verification and fraud detection built for this new paradigm

• Champion trust through industry standards and interoperable agentic ecosystems

In short, agentic commerce offers an edge to those who are prepared and a risk to those who aren’t. If you’d like support understanding customer needs so you can best leverage agentic commerce and keep pace with rapid change in the market, KAE can help – feel free to set up a call with one of our experts.