PAYMENTS
“ AI increasingly helps people decide what to buy – tomorrow it will help do the purchasing for them, too.”
Mastercard has already completed several live end‐to‐end payments executed by an AI agent in Europe this year and, earlier in 2026, launched Agent Suite – combining technical support, payments expertise, data‐fueled insights, proprietary technology platforms and 4,000 global advisors to help retailers and partners integrate agentic AI into their operations.
The agent as customer In its report, Mastercard poses a central thesis that retailers will soon serve two types of customers: humans and AI agents. It envisions a new kind of customer for retailers – an AI agent that can read reams of data, verify claims, scan for customer reviews and feedback in seconds to inform decision-making and then complete the purchase. This shift demandsmachine‐readable product information, claims and policies. For example, a sustainability claim should come with a certificate an agent can find, read and verify.
Loyalty programmes, customer relationships and digital experiences will need to be redesigned for agents as well as people, with trust positioned as the defining competitive advantage.
“ Every great shift in commerce has been, at heart, a shift in trust,” the report’ s Lead Futurist Magnus says.“ From the marketplace to the mall,
“It’ s repeat purchases that will show that it is becoming a convenient and trusted way to shop”
Agnes Woolrich Senior Vice President of Product and Customer Solutions Mastercard
to the catalogue, to the click of a button, each historic evolvement of commerce has asked people to place trust somewhere new.” Agnes Woolrich, SVP of Mastercard UK, says the first concrete signs of real adoption will be merchants visibly optimising for agents.
“ I’ d look at the number of merchants facilitating agentic commerce, defining their strategy and doing the work to be machine‐readable,” she says.“ This will tell us whether the industry is adjusting to this new audience and catering specifically for agents. The first question for many merchants is how they show up as Top of Agent in a prompted search, and seeing businesses investing there will show real adoption.”
Repeat usage, she adds, will be the second tell:“ I’ d also look at repeat purchases. If people are coming back
78 October 2026