Merchants Want AI Shopping Agents—But Only on Their Terms

Emily Jones · 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 tech isn't ready. It's that we're still in the early innings. Many merchants hear "agent" and think of independent sales organization (ISO) reseller agents, not artificial intelligence. That confusion alone tells you how much education still needs to happen. 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. ### The Agentic Revolution Is Coming—Ready or Not AI is already woven into consumers' daily lives. Shoppers use it to compare prices, discover products, and even get recommendations. Autonomous personal shopping agents are just the next logical step. Most merchants are open to that shift—but not if it means putting funds at risk or expanding 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." That's a lot of unknowns. Businesses are watching closely to see how transactions will settle, which standards will win out, and who actually owns the agent—the consumer, the merchant, or the AI company that built it. Agent ownership matters because it determines responsibility when things go wrong. And with fraud and security risks looming—like bad actors manipulating agents—getting that right is critical. "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." ### Volume Follows Trust Nuvei recently studied consumer attitudes toward agentic commerce. The findings are telling: - Only about 1% of respondents wanted fully automated AI purchasing. - 56% said they would never let an AI platform spend without their approval, no matter the amount. - 1.5% of U.S. purchases are already agentic—a small but significant slice. Those numbers might look like a roadblock. But history shows that consumer preferences can shift fast once trust is established. Remember when people wouldn't enter their credit card online? Now it's second nature. The same will likely happen with agentic commerce—but only if merchants and providers can prove the process is safe, reliable, and transparent. > "The ultimate objective is to create trust in the process by ensuring that an agent reliably executes its assigned tasks and delivers an outcome that meets customer expectations." — Don Apgar ### What Merchants Should Do Now Waiting for the dust to settle isn't a strategy. Here's how to get ready: - **Understand the landscape.** Learn how different agent models work and where your business fits. - **Evaluate your architecture.** Can your systems handle agent-initiated transactions without expanding PCI scope? - **Prioritize security.** Work with partners who take fraud prevention seriously. - **Engage with standards bodies.** Help shape the rules that will govern agentic commerce. - **Listen to your customers.** Their comfort level will dictate how fast you can move. The path forward isn't about jumping in headfirst. It's about preparing intelligently so that when your customers show up with shopping agents, you're ready to serve them—without compromising on trust or security. Agentic commerce is coming. The question is: will you be ready?