Agentic Commerce Sparks Trust Concerns Amid Scaling Ambitions

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher J Waller spoke at Sibos 2026 in Miami about agentic commerce, which he believes has the potential to significantly reshape commerce and payments if adoption scales.

The technology involves superintelligence agents that can assist consumers with product search and discovery, but also have the ability to independently shop and make payments on their behalf. Waller outlined two models for agentic commerce: agent-assisted, where consumers retain control of decisions and payments, and agent-delegated, where consumers give agents authority to shop and make payments.

Waller noted that the biggest barrier to scaling agentic commerce is building sufficient trust among buyers and sellers. Authentication, liability, and fraud are key challenges that need to be addressed before more autonomous transactions become widespread.