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Agentic commerce

2025ActivePublished: 16 October 2026Updated: 16 October 2026Published
Key innovation
Moving the purchase decision and payment initiation away from a human clicking "buy" toward an autonomous AI agent, enabled by open commerce and payment protocols (e.g. ACP, AP2) and cryptographically signed mandates that attest the user's intent and authorization.
Category
Other
Abstraction level
Paradigm
Operation level
Agent runtimeSystem
Use cases
In-chat purchases (e.g. Instant Checkout in ChatGPT)Autonomous replenishment and subscriptionsOffer comparison and selecting the cheapest optionReservations and bookings on the user's behalfB2B purchasing and agent-driven procurement

How it works

1) The merchant exposes a structured product feed and configures an agent-ready checkout (in ACP via REST or MCP). 2) The AI agent, acting on the user's instruction, discovers products and assembles a cart. 3) The user's intent and scope of authorization are captured as a cryptographically signed mandate (in AP2: mandates / Verifiable Digital Credentials; historically an Intent Mandate and a Cart Mandate, now a Checkout Mandate and a Payment Mandate). 4) At finalization, payment credentials are passed securely as tokens (delegated payment), without exposing raw card data to the agent, consistent with PCI requirements. 5) The payment provider processes the transaction while the merchant remains the merchant of record and fulfills the order.

Problem solved

Traditional payment systems assume a human personally clicks "buy" on a trusted site. When an autonomous agent initiates the transaction, that assumption breaks and new problems appear: how to verify that the user actually authorized the agent for a specific purchase (authorization), how to prove that a transaction matches the user's intent, and who is accountable for an erroneous or unauthorized payment. Agentic commerce standardizes these concerns through open protocols, agent identity verification, and signed mandates.

Components

Shopping agentAutonomous AI agent conducting the transaction

An agent, typically LLM-based, that discovers products, assembles the cart, and initiates checkout against the merchant on the user's behalf.

Commerce / checkout protocolStandardizes offer discovery and the purchase flow

An open standard (e.g. ACP) defining the product feed and agent-ready checkout, compatible with REST and MCP.

Mandate / intent credentialVerifiable user authorization

A cryptographically signed artifact attesting the user's intent and scope of authorization (in AP2, Verifiable Digital Credentials; Checkout/Payment mandates).

Delegated paymentSecure handoff of payment credentials

A mechanism to pass payment tokens between buyer and merchant through the agent, without exposing raw card data and compliant with PCI.

Agent identity verificationTrust and accountability

Mechanisms confirming that a given agent operates within granted authorization, enabling audit and accountability.

Implementation

Reference implementations
Agentic Commerce Protocol (specification)
OpenAI, Stripe
Official
Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)
Google
Official
Implementation pitfalls
Authorization and mandate scopeCritical

It is hard to unambiguously verify that the user authorized the agent for a specific purchase and that the transaction stays within the mandate scope.

Fix:Cryptographically signed, scope- and time-limited mandates plus explicit intent confirmation.
Liability for erroneous transactionsHigh

Unclear allocation of liability among the user, agent provider, merchant, and payment processor for an unauthorized or erroneous payment.

Fix:Auditable mandates, agent identity verification, and clear accountability rules in the protocol.
Payment credential securityHigh

Risk of exposing card data to the agent or to intermediaries in the transaction chain.

Fix:Tokenization and delegated payment without exposing raw credentials, compliant with PCI.

Evolution

2025
Google announces the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)
Inflection point

16 September 2025 โ€” an open agentic payments protocol as an extension of Agent2Agent (A2A), based on mandates and Verifiable Digital Credentials.

2025
OpenAI and Stripe launch the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) and Instant Checkout
Inflection point

An open standard under the Apache 2.0 license enabling agent-driven purchases; powers the Instant Checkout feature in ChatGPT.