Agentic AI and Blockchain: A Match Made for the Future of Consumer Transactions
The evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating, with the emergence of agentic AI, which is poised to have a profound impact on day-to-day life. Unlike generative AI, agentic AI is not just a tool to augment human work but a system that can perceive its environment, devise a plan, and execute multi-step tasks to achieve high-level goals without constant human supervision.
Agentic AI is expected to take on more complex tasks, such as initiating, tracking, and fulfilling transactions independently, and managing outcomes. Estimates suggest that agentic commerce could reach $3-$5 trillion by 2030. This new interaction model will require secure, autonomous, verifiable, and high-throughput record-keeping, which legacy credit card and banking infrastructures are ill-equipped to handle.
Blockchain and crypto technologies are well-suited to enable machine-to-machine transactions, with attributes such as autonomous contract creation and fulfillment, decentralized identity verification, auditability, access to decentralized computing and data, and speed and fulfillment. The Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) and open-source solutions are already gaining traction, and major credit card networks and Web3 providers have signed on to this payment standard.
AI agents are expected to account for 15% to 25% of all US e-commerce sales by 2030, and blockchain will be pivotal in allowing agentic AI to realize its potential for consumer transactions.