Biometrics Are Everywhere. So Why Aren't You Paying With Your Face?

Emily Jones · 2026-09-04

You unlock your phone with your face every day. So why can't you pay for groceries the same way? It turns out the answer isn't about technology—it's about incentives, regulations, and what merchants really want. Two big trends are shaking up payments right now: biometrics and AI. Biometrics are becoming a normal part of how we prove who we are. AI is growing up fast, moving from a novelty to a serious market. But the thing everyone's waiting for—AI agents that shop and pay for you—is still mostly a promise. A recent report from Javelin Strategy & Research, the 2026 Emerging Payments Survey, digs into how consumers are driving these changes. The research takes the long view. As Christopher Miller, Lead Analyst of Emerging Payments, puts it: "Automation is a thousand-year trend, not a five-year trend." In other words, real change takes time. ### Biometrics: Familiar but Not for Payments Biometric authentication feels familiar because we use it constantly. Your phone's facial recognition or fingerprint scanner is just part of the routine. Usage patterns follow the devices we own: Apple users tend to use facial recognition, while Android users lean on fingerprints. But when it comes to paying at a store, biometrics lag. Nearly half of consumers say they'd be likely to use biometric authentication at a merchant terminal. The problem? They rarely get the chance. "In my own research about providers of biometrics for point of sale, they tell me that payment is fading as a use case," Miller says. "The growth opportunity for biometrics is as part of a broader identification of an individual for a variety of reasons in a shopping scenario." In other words, merchants care about more than just taking your money. They want to know who you are, what you like, whether you have loyalty points, and how they can upsell you. Biometrics can help with all of that. ### Why Payments Aren't the Main Event You might think that pressing your thumb on a fingerprint reader to pay would be the obvious next step. But it's not that simple. "The reality today is that ultimately biometrics is to be more than the payment," Miller says. "The payment is secondary to the broader mission of recognizing the individual and all of the things that you can do once you recognize the individual." Past changes in payments often came from regulation, not consumer demand. Remember when we switched from magnetic-stripe cards to chip cards? That was driven by mandates, not because shoppers were clamoring for chips. Plus, there's not much money to be made from using biometrics to reduce fraud at the point of sale. Transactions where the card or device is present are already low risk. If retailers see only tiny benefits, they have little reason to invest. ### AI's Competitive Landscape The AI world is shifting just as fast. A year or two ago, ChatGPT was the only AI tool most people knew. Now, competitors like Perplexity, Claude, Copilot, and Gemini are gaining ground in awareness and usage. ChatGPT has even seen a slight decline. The result is a more mature and competitive landscape. That's good news for consumers—more choices, better tools. But it also means that the dream of AI agents that shop and pay for you is still a work in progress. The pieces are falling into place, but we're not there yet. So what's the takeaway? Biometrics are here to stay, but they'll likely be used for more than just payments. And AI is growing up, but agentic payments are still on the horizon. As Miller suggests, we're in it for the long haul.