The Fintech 2040 paper, supported by Riverty research, argues that autonomous AI agents will move from assistants to active buyers. This shift forces a rethink of payments, consumer control, and the technical rules that will govern machine-to-machine commerce.
AI Agents: The New Gatekeepers of Commerce?
The Shift to Agentic Commerce
Agentic commerce describes AI that searches, compares, negotiates, and completes purchases on behalf of people. That changes competition. Success will hinge on machine-readable product data, payment authority, transparent permissioning, and cross-system interoperability. Platforms that control these layers can become de facto gatekeepers of demand and settlement.
Consumer Trust: The Core Challenge
Consumer Expectations and Control
Surveys cited in Fintech 2040 show 93% of consumers want the ability to review or stop AI decisions and prefer limits on spending authority. Consumers demand clear transaction records, simple revocation of permissions, and human oversight options. Technology alone will not drive adoption; trust and predictable safeguards will determine whether agentic commerce gains scale.
Strategic Paths for Agentic Commerce
Building Interoperable, Transparent Ecosystems
China’s large integrated players, including Alibaba and ByteDance, can bundle search, discovery, and payment into tightly coupled experiences. That yields fast adoption but concentrates power. Europe has a different opportunity: favor protocols that allow diverse agents and vendors to interoperate while exposing permission and payment flows to consumers.
The new battleground is the trust and protocol layer. Practical steps for businesses and policymakers include: publish machine-readable catalogs and consent schemas; adopt payment authority standards that record execution and liability; require auditable permission logs; and support cross-platform identity and dispute mechanisms. Firms that invest in transparent permission models and trusted execution will be better positioned to win consumer confidence.
Agentic commerce will reshape how value flows online. The actors that control trust, payments, and interoperable protocols will set the rules of the next commerce era.
