Global Payments Details the Promise And Perils of Agentic Commerce

The promise and potential perils of agentic commerce as a digital technology are among the trends highlighted in Global Payments Inc.’s 2026 Commerce and Payments Trends Report.

Beginning as a form of customer service based on its natural-language capabilities, artificial intelligence has begun to take off through the use of AI agents that shop and purchase on behalf of consumers, the report says. Some 42% of small businesses and 45% of medium-sized firms say they have seen AI agents make purchases on behalf of consumers. Among enterprise-sized, 16% say they have seen that trend.

Familiarity with agentic commerce is highest among retail-oriented businesses, with 25% saying they are familiar with the technology, while 11% of merchants in the restaurant/hospitality sector and 3% of professional services providers say they are familiar. Among retail businesses, 44% say they have seen customers adopt agentic tools, compared to 34% of all businesses, according to the report.

Global Payments surveyed 600 business professionals globally involved in making decisions on issues related to technology investment and payments. In addition, the processor had “detailed discussions with leaders deeply familiar with the major trends driving payments, consumer behaviors, B2B transactions, and other major technologies,” the report says.

One benefit of agentic commerce is that the technology can increase conversion rates for online shoppers. A 2025 study from equity-research firm Bernstein says AI agents could increase global e-commerce conversion rates between 1.5 and 2.5 percentage points. Such an increase would generate $240 billion in new revenue, or the equivalent of six times the market capitalization of Target Corp.

“AI has the power to meaningfully transform the customer experience into a process that feels personally curated and intuitive,” Ryan Loy, chief information officer for Global Payments, says in the report. “Incorporating AI into the retail experience through customer-centric designs means focusing on what matters most: greater efficiency and speed, and a frictionless journey that eliminates endless scrolling or searching.”

Despite AI’s promise for digital commerce, businesses are not entirely comfortable with AI agents shopping and purchasing on a consumer’s behalf. Some 42% of businesses say they would be concerned if AI agents started buying from them on behalf of consumers, while 36% said no, and 22% said they were not sure. The primary reservations businesses have about agentic commerce are security, fraud prevention, and dispute resolution.

Nor are consumers entirely comfortable with AI agents shopping on their behalf. A July poll conducted by research firm YouGov reveals that 14% of Americans surveyed have used an AI shopping assistant and 11% have allowed an AI agent to complete a purchase on their behalf. Just 4% said they are interested in letting an AI agent buy things on their behalf.

The key to overcoming qualms businesses and consumers have about agentic commerce is experience with the technology, Global Payment concludes.

 “As with many technological leaps in payments, comfort comes with experience,” the study says. “Ride-sharing or meal-delivery services also require users to preload their credit card information into a platform to execute a sale without their explicit permission. In fact, that is one of their chief attractions.”

Despite their qualms about agentic commerce, businesses will have a strong incentive to help build confidence in agentic commerce.

“Merchants will have far more information about the shopper, what they are searching for, what their buying habits indicate, and what their budget is,” the study says. “Previously, that kind of information might only have been known to the buyer and her cookie-empowered browser. Now, it may go directly to the merchant.”

 Other trends examined in the study include embedded finance, stablecoins, and instant payments.