Agentic Commerce: What Merchants Really Want Before They Hand Over the Reins

Jessica Albright · 2026-09-23

There's a growing gap between the hype around agentic commerce and what's actually happening on the ground. It's not that AI agents can't do the job—or that the infrastructure isn't ready. It's just that we're still in the early innings. Many merchants still hear "agent" and think of independent sales organization (ISO) reseller agents, not artificial intelligence. That confusion says a lot about where we are. In a recent PaymentsJournal podcast, Hilla Peled, SVP of AI & Data Science at Nuvei, and Don Apgar, Director of Merchant Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, dug into agentic commerce from the merchant's point of view. Their big takeaway? Trust is the name of the game. But just because there are questions doesn't mean things are slowing down. If anything, now is the time for merchants and providers to get their strategies in order. ### Preparing for the Agentic Revolution AI is already woven into consumers' daily lives. People use it to compare prices, discover products, and streamline shopping. Autonomous personal shopping agents are the next logical step. Most merchants are on board—as long as it doesn't put funds at risk or expand their PCI scope. > "Merchants aren't saying, 'give me a shopping agent,' but they want to be prepared to the extent that their customers show up with shopping agents," Apgar said. "Largely, they're trying to figure out what this means, which standard will prevail, and how they should look at their architecture and their position in agentic commerce." Businesses are watching the technical details closely: how transactions will settle, which standards will govern interactions, and—maybe most importantly—who owns the agent. Is it acting for the consumer, the merchant, or the AI company that built it? That answer will shape everything about agentic payments. The goal is to build trust by making sure agents reliably do what they're supposed to and meet customer expectations. That's a tall order given fraud and security risks, like bad actors manipulating agents, consumers, or merchants. Many of these questions don't have clear answers yet, so expect plenty of uncertainty and adjustment as the space matures. "One of the biggest things that we observe is the gap between what customers are doing when adopting the public agents versus what the PSPs and acquirers are willing to take on," Peled said. "Everyone is now just preparing themselves to the point where agentic commerce will become much wider." "We know that 1.5% of purchases in the U.S. have been agentic, which is huge when you think of the current state of agentic commerce," she said. "At the same time, both customers and merchants and any business across e-commerce today is wondering, 'What is the next thing they need to do in order to be ready when agentic commerce will explode?'" ### Volume Follows Trust To get a clearer picture, Nuvei studied consumer attitudes and behaviors. The findings were telling: only about 1% of respondents wanted fully automated AI purchasing. And 56% said they'd never let an AI platform spend without their approval—no matter the amount. At first glance, that might seem like a roadblock. But past technology shifts show that consumer preferences can evolve. Remember when people were hesitant to enter credit card details online? Now it's second nature. So what should merchants do? Start by understanding the landscape and asking the hard questions: - Who owns the agent in each scenario? - What standards will govern transactions? - How can you protect funds and limit PCI scope? - What does your architecture need to look like to support agentic interactions? The answers aren't all here yet, but the businesses that start preparing now will be the ones ready when agentic commerce hits the mainstream. After all, volume follows trust. And trust is built one reliable transaction at a time.