Agentic Commerce Poised to Revolutionize Payments, but Trust Remains a Key Hurdle

Agentic commerce has the potential to significantly reshape commerce and payments if adoption scales, according to Federal Reserve Governor Christopher J. Waller. Speaking at Sibos 2026 in Miami, Waller noted that market participants broadly agree that agentic commerce is in an early phase.

The payments industry is entering a new phase where superintelligence agents can move beyond assisting consumers to independently shop and make payments on their behalf, said Waller.

Waller outlined two broad models: the agent-assisted model, where consumers use a superintelligence agent for product search and discovery but retain control of decisions and payments; and the agent-delegated model, where consumers give an agent authority to shop and make payments on their behalf, subject to specified constraints and safeguards.

Consumer-to-business transactions are likely to be the first area of agentic commerce, with more autonomous, agent-delegated transactions requiring stronger trust mechanisms and guardrails, said Waller. He identified authentication, liability, and fraud as key challenges in building sufficient trust among buyers and sellers.