Agentic commerce takes flight
In collaboration with The Paypers’ Global Ecommerce Report 2026, Worldpay shares what travel, digital and retail brands need to know about agentic commerce.
In early 2026, The Paypers published its Global Ecommerce Report 2026, a wide-ranging industry publication featuring contributions from payments leaders across the globe. I contributed a piece examining what agentic commerce means for merchants in travel, digital goods and retail – and what they need to do now to stay ahead.
The article below draws on original Worldpay consumer research surveying 8,000 respondents across eight markets: the US, the UK, France, Brazil, China, Singapore and Australia. Each respondent was given a clear description of an AI shopping agent, then asked how comfortable they would feel allowing it to make purchases across key categories. The findings reveal strong consumer appetite for agent-led purchasing – particularly in functional, lower-risk categories – and point to the payment infrastructure priorities that will determine which brands benefit most from the shift.
Key findings at a glance
~50% | of global consumers would trust an AI agent to make digital goods purchases up to £50 – the highest approval rate of any category studied. |
30–34% | of consumers would allow an agent to handle retail purchases up to £50, and 27–32% up to £100. |
23–31% | of global shoppers would delegate travel purchases of £101–500 to an AI agent – and 19–24% up to £1,000. |
Source: Worldpay Agentic Commerce Report, 2025
Why agentic commerce is the payments industry's biggest shift since online shopping
Agentic commerce is rapidly emerging as the most transformative development in the payments industry since the rise of online shopping. But its path from concept to everyday reality hinges on one thing: consumer trust.
Consumer enthusiasm signals that agentic commerce could accelerate faster than many businesses anticipate. This shift won't only reshape how merchants operate. Payment service providers (PSPs), issuing banks, fintech platforms and risk teams across the payments ecosystem will also need to adapt as agent-initiated transactions become more common.
How will agentic commerce affect travel merchants?
Travel is the category where autonomous shopping is most intuitive. Planning a trip involves a large number of decisions – price tracking, inventory checks, loyalty optimisation and rebooking when plans change. Automation fits naturally into that process.
Our research shows that consumers are meaningfully more comfortable delegating higher-value travel purchases than they are in other categories:
- 23–31% of global shoppers would trust an agent to manage travel purchases between £101 and £500.
- 19–24% would allow an agent-initiated purchase up to £1,000.
- 2–3% would permit an agent to execute purchases above £5,000.
'Worldpay's experience processing more than 50 billion transactions a year gives airlines, OTAs and hospitality brands a strong foundation to adapt with confidence.'
For merchants, this represents both opportunity and pressure. As more of the travel journey becomes agent-led, every payment request – whether it originates from a person or a machine – must be authorised quickly and consistently across markets. Tokenisation at scale, broad global acquiring coverage and performance optimisation are critical capabilities. Worldpay's experience processing more than 50 billion transactions a year gives airlines, OTAs and hospitality brands a strong foundation to adapt with confidence.
How will agentic commerce affect digital goods and subscription businesses?
Digital commerce already operates close to agentic behavior. Consumers are familiar with automated renewals, in-app purchases and low-friction micro-transactions – and the data reflects that familiarity.
- ~50% of global consumers said they would trust an agent with digital purchases of up to £50 – the highest approval rate across any vertical in the study.
- 22–27% would extend that comfort to £51–100 purchases.
- 11–16% are open to £101–500 agent-initiated transactions.
The next evolution is intelligence. Rather than simply renewing a subscription on schedule, agents will adjust tiers based on real usage – anticipating in-game needs, optimising bundles and removing unused services proactively. This requires payment systems that can support high-frequency, autonomous transactions without failure or drop-off. With tokenisation, intelligent retries and flexible settlement models, Worldpay helps platforms maintain reliability even as the volume of agent-initiated transactions grows.
How will agentic commerce affect retail merchants?
Retail is where agentic commerce enters everyday life. Consumers face overwhelming choice – from household essentials to seasonal purchases – and automation offers practical relief.
- 30–34% of consumers would trust agents to manage retail purchases up to £50.
- 27–32% would extend that trust to purchases of £51–100.
- 21–24% would allow autonomous purchases of £101–500 – outperforming digital goods at this value tier.
This is where agentic retail will have the most impact: automating replenishment, comparing prices across merchants and predicting recurring needs. Worldpay enables retailers to make this shift with strong global acceptance rates, identity-free authentication flows and authorisation optimisation designed for autonomous transactions.
'As more routine purchases shift to agents, merchants that modernise their payment foundations will win recurring, automated business.'
What should merchants prioritise to prepare for agentic commerce?
As more decisions shift from people to trusted agents, merchants – and the wider payments ecosystem – should strengthen transaction infrastructure across five areas:
- Invisible payments. Agents function best when nothing slows them down. Tokenisation, stored credentials and consistent global authorisation provide the reliability autonomous shopping requires.
- Intelligent routing support. Agents seek the most cost-efficient and dependable path. Merchants, PSPs and acquirers should embrace orchestration and routing flexibility to match that expectation.
- Ecosystem interoperability. PSPs and banks are essential to enabling agentic commerce by improving API consistency, aligning authorisation logic and supporting the data signals agents depend on.
- Consumer-centric controls. Shoppers want transparency. Spend limits, approval settings and simple override controls build trust as consumers hand over routine decisions to their agents.
- Data as a service. Agentic commerce relies on real-time signals. Payment insights help merchants and PSPs identify friction patterns and resolve them before they affect conversion. For fintechs, this emerging class of autonomous payment flows will require new risk models, authorisation strategies and data partnerships.
What does agentic commerce mean for the future of customer experience?
Agentic commerce marks a structural shift in how consumers shop. The data shows genuine openness to agent-led purchasing – at meaningful transaction values – across travel, digital goods and retail. Merchants, PSPs and banks that prepare now will be positioned to deliver experiences that feel effortless, intuitive and global from day one. With the right payment foundations in place, brands can turn agentic commerce from a challenge to manage into a competitive advantage to build on.
Frequently asked questions about agentic commerce
What payment infrastructure do merchants need for agentic commerce?
Merchants need tokenisation at scale, stored credential frameworks, consistent global authorisation, and intelligent routing to support high-frequency, machine-initiated transactions. Identity-free authentication flows and real-time data signals are also critical as agents increasingly initiate purchases without direct human involvement at checkout.
Which industries will be most affected by agentic commerce first?
Travel, digital goods and retail are the three categories where consumer comfort with AI-led purchasing is highest, according to Worldpay's 2025 consumer research. Travel is particularly advanced because booking decisions – price tracking, loyalty optimisation, rebooking – map naturally to what AI agents do well.
How much will consumers let AI agents spend on their behalf?
Trust levels vary significantly by category and market. For digital goods, around 50% of global consumers are comfortable with agent purchases up to £50. For travel, nearly a quarter of respondents would allow agent-initiated purchases up to £1,000. A small share (2–3%) would permit travel purchases above £5,000. Consumer controls – spend limits and approval settings – are important trust enablers across all categories.
What is the difference between automated and agentic commerce?
Automated commerce covers pre-configured rules – subscription renewals, standing orders – where the consumer has set explicit instructions in advance. Agentic commerce goes further: an AI agent uses real-time context, preferences and signals to make judgment-based decisions, such as selecting which subscription tier to renew, finding the best travel deal, or predicting a replenishment need, without explicit per-transaction input from the consumer.
How should PSPs and payment providers adapt to agentic commerce?
PSPs need to improve API consistency, align authorisation logic for non-human requests, support new data signals that agents rely on, and work with merchants to build interoperable infrastructure. New risk models and authorisation strategies are also required, as traditional fraud signals may not apply to legitimate agent-initiated transactions.
More from the Global Ecommerce Report 2026
Agentic commerce is one of several forces reshaping global ecommerce in 2026. The Paypers' Global Ecommerce Report 2026 also covers:
- Global market size. Global ecommerce grew 6.8% year-on-year in 2025 – its slowest rate since 2022 – reaching an estimated $6.42 trillion. A rebound to $6.8 trillion is projected for 2026, with ecommerce representing approximately 21% of total retail sales worldwide.
- Social and livestream commerce. Surveys suggest approximately half of US consumers now prefer completing purchases within social media apps. Live commerce events are expanding in LATAM, while Europe lags due to established retail habits and data protection regulation.
- Stablecoins as payment infrastructure. With the GENIUS Act (US), MiCA (EU) and Hong Kong's Stablecoins Ordinance providing clearer regulatory frameworks, stablecoin transaction volumes reached $9 trillion in 2025. Amazon, Walmart and Klarna are among the major players signaling a shift from niche experiment to core infrastructure.
- Growth market deep dives. The report includes original research on six high-growth markets – Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, Indonesia, the UAE and Nigeria – mapping merchant acquirer landscapes and the rapid rise of alternative payment methods in LATAM and APAC.
- Fraud and risk in an agentic world. A chapter from the Merchant Risk Council examines the fraud challenge agentic commerce introduces. With 51% of internet traffic now bots and 37% considered malicious (Imperva Bad Bot Report, 2025), distinguishing legitimate agent-initiated transactions from malicious automated activity is an urgent and still-unresolved problem for merchants and risk teams.
Download a special Worldpay edition of the Global Ecommerce Report 2026.
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