Agentic commerce represents the next frontier of payments, where AI agents conduct purchases autonomously on behalf of consumers and businesses.
Until now, all commerce has been buyer on one side, seller on the other. Now, we have empowered digital agents making payment decisions on behalf of others. This paradigm shift moves beyond traditional human-to-human commerce toward a model where intelligent agents make purchasing decisions within predefined parameters and trust boundaries, such as booking travel, ordering groceries, or even managing subscriptions.
"Trust is going to make or break agentic commerce. It becomes very easy for you to trust an AI agent to do a 50-cent transaction versus a $50 transaction. These nuances will shape where and how agentic commerce will be adopted first.”
Pavan HS, Sr. Director Product, Agentic Commerce
The adoption pattern of agentic commerce will likely mirror other payment innovations, with lower-value transactions leading the way. Markets with high mobile penetration generally have smaller average ticket sizes, which makes them more naturally conducive to agentic commerce adoption.
As trust builds over the next three to five years, we’ll see a natural progression from micro-transactions to larger purchases. After all, there’s a difference between trusting an AI agent with a 50-cent purchase as opposed to a $100 transaction.
North America's adoption will likely be led by enterprises already incorporating AI experiences in other B2B areas.
For these organizations, payments are a natural evolution of their existing AI capabilities. Their infrastructure requirements center around secure authentication and risk frameworks that help ensure agents only operate within approved parameters.
Since agentic commerce is automated by nature and occurs in real-time, it requires two things:
- Intelligent agents that make accurate decisions quickly.
- Transactions directed through the most secure and reliable pathways, equipped with encryption and authentication mechanisms.
This helps minimize the risk of interception or tampering by bad actors.
Tokenization becomes critical in this environment, providing the secure credential management necessary for agents to conduct trusted transactions. The same network token technology that merchants already rely upon can create the foundation for agentic commerce so these new experiences operate within familiar, proven security frameworks.
Interestingly, cryptocurrency and stablecoin adoption may accelerate in regions with currency volatility, where agentic commerce fits well with digital-native payments. The intersection of AI agents, micro-transactions, and cryptocurrencies could drive adoption in unexpected markets, potentially leapfrogging traditional payment infrastructure entirely.
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