Agentic commerce: The Future of AI-Powered Shopping

Major payment and tech companies are racing to build the infrastructure for what they see as the next evolution of global commerce: artificial intelligence agents that can perform searches, compare prices, and make purchases on behalf of consumers. This trend, referred to as “agentic commerce,” reflects consumers’ growing reliance on chatbots for everyday tasks, including searching for products and deals online. Until recently, these tools lacked a critical function – the ability to complete a purchase within the interface.

Payment giants like Visa and Mastercard say that is changing. Over the past year, both companies have been forging the systems and partnerships needed for this next step in commerce, with early pilots of the technology already underway. Payment executives predict this technology will become a reality in 2026 and could be more transformative than the rise of e-commerce platforms like amazon.

“A big shift in commerce happened when payments moved from a mostly brick-and-mortar world to an e-commerce world,” said Sandeep Malhotra, Mastercard’s EVP for Core Payments in Asia Pacific.”Now, we are seeing the next shift, which is moving from the e-commerce world to an agentic commerce world,” he said. “We have gone from cash to digital, now we’re going from digital to smart.”

How Agentic Commerce Works

Agentic commerce generally refers to AI systems that act on behalf of users to discover products, compare deals, and complete payments within the chatbot. This promises a more seamless shopping experience by curating options based on specific requests, eliminating the need to navigate multiple websites or apps. When price discovery and shopping ubiquity become the norm, it will be engaging to see how companies adapt.

Visa’s APAC Head of Products and Solutions, T.R. ramachandran, highlights that one of the obvious early use cases could be flight and vacation bookings. For instance, a user might ask an AI commerce agent: “Find me the cheapest red-eye flight from Singapore to Tokyo under $500 with no stops.” The agent will then be able to search, compare, and complete the purchase without the user leaving the chat interface.

Key Takeaways

• The Next Evolution: Agentic commerce represents the next major shift in how we shop online, moving beyond customary e-commerce.
• Seamless Shopping: AI agents will handle product discovery, price comparison, and payment processing within a single interface.
• 2026 Rollout: Payment executives anticipate the widespread availability of this technology by 2026.
• Transformative Potential: Agentic commerce could be even more impactful than the rise of e-commerce platforms.

Publication Date: 2025/12/29 08:12:00