Agentic Commerce

AI agents are beginning to reshape how products and services are discovered, compared, shortlisted, evaluated, and purchased. The near-term shift is less about fully autonomous purchasing and more about how AI shapes discovery, comparison, and shortlisting before any purchase decision is visible to the seller.

Decision influence is moving earlier in the buying journey. At the same time, a new layer of infrastructure is forming underneath: agent commerce protocols (ACP, AP2, Machine Payments Protocol, x402), payments rails for agents, refund and reversibility scaffolding, merchant readiness for agent traffic, and the early agent-to-merchant interaction patterns that the card networks, payment platforms, and merchant commerce platforms are now building.

Agent commerce protocols and standards. ACP, AP2, Machine Payments Protocol, x402, Mastercard and Visa agent commerce work, payments rails for agents, refund and reversibility infrastructure.

Merchant readiness for agent traffic. Agent-readable catalogues, agent storefronts, the agent-to-merchant interaction layer, and the work commerce platforms are doing to become legible and payable to agents.

Buyer behaviour. How AI-assisted research, AI-mediated comparison, and AI-mediated transactions are shifting the buyer journey for B2B and B2C alike.

Category-specific signals. Where agentic commerce is moving faster, where it is moving slower, and what determines the shape of the automation curve inside a category.