Agentic Commerce

Question 1

How can marketplaces prepare for agentic commerce?

Accepted Answer

Publish structured, machine-readable catalogs and interfaces agents can use, such as MCP servers or protocol checkouts, and decide how agent orders get authorized and verified. Our post shares what we learned.

Question 2

What is agentic checkout?

Accepted Answer

Agentic checkout is a checkout completed by an AI agent instead of a person clicking through a site. The agent creates the order with the merchant, supplies shipping and payment details and confirms it, usually through a standard interface such as ACP's checkout API, while the merchant still processes the payment.

Question 3

What is agentic commerce?

Accepted Answer

Agentic commerce is buying and selling carried out by AI agents acting for people or businesses: the agent finds products, compares options, places orders and pays, within limits the user sets. It runs on protocols such as ACP, AP2 and x402, and on card network programs built for agent payments.

Question 4

How do AI agents make purchasing decisions?

Accepted Answer

From the user's goal and constraints, such as budget, preferences and deadline, plus product data they can read: catalogs, feeds, prices, availability and reviews. The agent compares options against those constraints, then buys within its mandate or asks the user to approve. Better structured merchant data leads to better choices.

Question 5

What is agentic shopping?

Accepted Answer

Agentic shopping is consumer shopping done by an AI agent: you describe what you want, and the agent searches, compares and, if you allow it, buys for you. It can happen with you present, approving the final cart, or be delegated in advance, buying when conditions you set are met, as AP2 describes.

Question 6

How does agentic commerce work?

Accepted Answer

A user gives an agent a goal and limits. The agent discovers products through feeds, APIs or MCP servers, compares them, then checks out through a merchant interface such as ACP and pays with a scoped credential, such as a tokenized card or delegated token. The merchant fulfils the order as usual.

Question 7

What is the difference between agentic commerce and e-commerce?

Accepted Answer

In e-commerce, a person browses a website, chooses and pays. In agentic commerce, an AI agent does those steps for the person, through machine-readable catalogs and checkout interfaces instead of web pages. The merchant's customer is still the person, but the agent increasingly decides what they see and buy.

Question 8

Is agentic commerce safe for consumers?

Accepted Answer

It can be, with the right controls: agents pay with tokenized credentials instead of card numbers, consumers set spending limits and conditions, and purchases need the user's approval or a signed mandate. Risks include manipulated agents and unwanted purchases, so check what limits and dispute options a service offers.

Question 9

What are the biggest risks in agentic commerce?

Accepted Answer

Agents buying things users did not want, manipulation through prompt injection on merchant pages, stolen credentials, unclear liability when an agent errs, disputes without evidence of what the user approved, and fraud by fake agents. Most are reduced by spending limits, verified agent identity and signed records of user authorization.

Question 10

How will agentic commerce change online payments?

Accepted Answer

Payments move from a person typing card details to agents paying with tokenized credentials, delegated tokens and mandates, often without a visible checkout page. Networks are issuing tokens built for agents, protocols carry proof of user authorization, and pay-per-request payments over HTTP become practical for APIs and data.

Question 11

What does agentic commerce mean for retailers?

Accepted Answer

Agents become a new kind of shopper. Retailers need machine-readable catalogs with accurate prices and stock, checkouts agents can use, ways to recognize trusted agents instead of blocking them as bots, and clear policies for returns and disputes. Retailers that agents cannot read or trust risk being skipped.

Question 12

What does agentic commerce mean for banks and issuers?

Accepted Answer

Issuers must authorize payments their cardholders did not make in person, so they need to know which agent is paying and whether the user authorized it. Networks are adding agent tokens and trust signals to support those decisions, and issuers will handle disputes over what an agent was allowed to buy.

Question 13

What does agentic commerce mean for card networks?

Accepted Answer

Networks are adapting their rails rather than being replaced: registering and verifying agents, issuing tokens for agent use, helping merchants recognize trusted agents and passing richer data to issuers. Visa Intelligent Commerce and Mastercard Agent Pay are their programs for doing this.

Question 14

What is delegated checkout?

Accepted Answer

Delegated checkout is a purchase an AI agent completes on a user's behalf with a payment credential delegated to it for that purpose, usually limited in amount, merchant and time. ACP's delegated payment spec, for example, issues a token the merchant can only charge within an allowance of maximum amount, merchant and expiry.

Question 15

What is an agentic transaction?

Accepted Answer

An agentic transaction is a purchase or payment initiated and completed by an AI agent acting for a person or business, within authority they granted, instead of by the person at that moment. It can run on card rails, through checkout protocols or onchain, and should carry evidence of the user's authorization.

Question 16

Conversational commerce vs agentic commerce: what is the difference?

Accepted Answer

Conversational commerce is shopping through a chat or messaging interface, where a person asks questions and still makes the decision and payment. Agentic commerce goes further: the AI agent acts, choosing and buying within the user's limits. One assists the shopper; the other shops on their behalf.

Question 17

How do AI shopping agents find and compare products?

Accepted Answer

Through structured sources, such as merchant product feeds, catalog APIs, MCP servers and search, rather than browsing pages like a person. ACP's product feed proposal, for example, gives agents product, variant, price, availability and seller data, so they can compare options and pass the right item into checkout.

Question 18

How do you make a product catalog readable by AI agents?

Accepted Answer

Publish structured product data: identifiers such as GTINs, names, variants, prices, availability, images, shipping and returns. Mark up pages with schema.org Product and Offer data, publish a product feed in a format agents use, such as ACP's, and keep prices and stock current so agents never recommend unavailable items.

Question 19

Who are the main players in agentic commerce?

Accepted Answer

AI platforms that run shopping agents; card networks, through Visa Intelligent Commerce and Mastercard Agent Pay; payment companies such as Stripe, which co-maintains ACP; Google, behind AP2; the x402 Foundation for internet-native payments; and the merchants, marketplaces and infrastructure providers connecting them.

Question 20

What has to be true for agentic commerce to go mainstream?

Accepted Answer

Consumers must trust agents to spend for them, merchants must be able to recognize and accept agents, payments must carry proof of what the user authorized, and liability for mistakes must be clear. Standards for identity, checkout and payment also need to converge, so agents work across merchants.

Question 21

What trust problems does agentic commerce still need to solve?

Accepted Answer

Knowing which agent is acting and who stands behind it, proving that a user authorized a specific purchase, stopping manipulated agents, settling disputes over agent mistakes and protecting payment credentials. Identity standards, signed mandates and tokenized credentials address parts of each, but they are still being adopted.

Question 22

Who owns the customer relationship in agentic commerce?

Accepted Answer

It is contested. The merchant still sells and fulfils the order, and in ACP remains the system of record, but the agent platform increasingly owns the conversation and the choice of where to buy. Merchants keep the relationship by giving agents good data and recognizing returning customers, which Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol supports with consent.

Question 23

How does agentic commerce affect conversion and cart abandonment?

Accepted Answer

Agents remove many steps where people abandon carts, such as forms and payment entry, so delegated purchases can complete smoothly. But agents also compare merchants instantly, so a merchant with poor product data, a slow checkout or bot defenses that block legitimate agents can lose the sale entirely.

Question 24

What is the agentic web?

Accepted Answer

The agentic web is a version of the internet where AI agents, not just people, find information, make decisions and complete tasks on behalf of users and organizations. Microsoft describes an open agentic web built on protocols such as MCP, with websites exposing their content to agents through projects such as NLWeb.

Question 25

What is the difference between an AI assistant and an AI agent that can buy?

Accepted Answer

An AI assistant answers and recommends, and a person still decides and pays. An agent that can buy holds a payment credential and the authority to complete purchases, within limits the user set. That authority is what brings in identity, mandates, spending controls and questions of liability.