How agentic commerce will transform key industries

This Insights series explores agentic commerce – a transformative shift where AI agents take the lead in shopping, payments and customer decision-making.

Agentic commerce is no longer just a theory on the horizon. It’s actively reshaping how people shop, travel, manage money and more – forcing businesses to rethink how they meet customers in this new environment.

In Amsterdam at Worldpay Rethink, we asked 250 merchants and payments leaders which trend they were most eager to understand. Their answer was clear: agentic commerce.

The reason is obvious. AI agents aren’t just a novelty; they’re poised to redefine how decisions are made and how payments flow. The upside is significant, but the uncertainty is just as real.

The questions merchants face are pressing:

• Where will customers draw the line on agent-driven choices?
• Which industries will be reshaped first?
• And how should businesses prepare to engage with these new digital intermediaries?

"Consumers are starting to show strong enthusiasm for agentic shopping, but also have clear boundaries."

At Worldpay, we’re already seeing answers take shape. Through our expertise and work with partners across the globe, early adoption patterns are beginning to emerge.

For example, consumers are starting to show strong enthusiasm for agentic shopping, but also have clear boundaries: They trust agents with low-risk, repeatable tasks more readily than with high-stakes or deeply personal decisions.

That sets the stage for adoption by vertical.

Retail and ecommerce

Retail is the frontline. Globally, consumers are warming to the idea of leveraging AI to shop, but in China and the US, there is already significant appetite among consumers.

Nearly half of U.S. shoppers say they’re ready to try agentic shopping within the next year, with younger shoppers and men across broader age brackets leading the charge. Agents will speed up comparison shopping and subscription reorders, helping users find better deals and discover new brands.

The risk for merchants is clear: If agents default to price over brand, loyalty programs risk being sidelined. Retailers must adapt their strategies to stay visible in agent-driven environments.

Another concern is returns. As agents make faster, broader purchases, retailers risk a spike in unwanted items coming back. Smarter return policies and fulfillment strategies will be essential to protect margins without losing customer trust.

Travel and hospitality

Travel is a strong fit for agents. Booking flights, hotels and trip insurance follows structured, rule-based flows with clear policies and consumer protections – even if holidays remain high stakes financially, operationally and emotionally.

The bigger challenge is stitching services into streamlined journeys. Travel is highly fragmented, with airlines, OTAs, hotels and tour operators all running on different APIs and payment processes. For agents to deliver one-click itineraries, they’ll need to navigate this patchwork in ways current systems aren’t designed for.

Financial services

Consumers are more comfortable trusting agents with routine financial tasks – like bill pay, insurance payments or policy renewals – than with complex wealth management and lending. That makes sense. Routine transactions are low risk, while investment and loan application decisions are deeply personal.

"Consumers are more comfortable trusting agents with routine financial tasks."

Financial institutions that embrace transparency, clarify liability in agentic flows and design agent-aware verification will be the ones positioned to meet agent-driven demand as it scales.

Gaming and gambling

In gambling, the shift is already visible. Agents don’t just place bets; they hedge, arbitrage and optimise in real time. That changes the game entirely. An industry historically defined by risk begins to look more like trading when AI minimizes uncertainty.

This raises profound regulatory and operational questions. Fraud systems already flag bot-like behaviors that legitimate agents display, driving false positives in chargebacks. The solution isn’t to block AI but to build fraud frameworks that are agent-aware – tools like trust scores and Know Your Agent standards will be key.

Consumer staples and subscriptions

For everyday essentials like groceries, personal care and household products, consumers show some of the highest trust in agentic shopping. Agents may quietly take over replenishment, managing repeat orders without human input.

"Shelf visibility matters less than digital visibility to AI."

That tilt in behaviour shifts brand power toward merchants who expose structured, agent-readable data. In this world, shelf visibility matters less than digital visibility to AI. Merchants will face a strategic choice: Open data to maximise reach, or keep it closed to protect loyalty. Most will land somewhere in the middle.

The common thread: trust and readiness

Each industry will follow its own adoption curve, but all share a challenge: how to distinguish, verify and serve AI agents with the same confidence as human customers. That means building new standards of trust, rethinking checkout flows and preparing fraud systems to recognise good agents without blocking them.

At Worldpay, we see agentic commerce not as a distant possibility but as a reality already unfolding. We process $2.3 trillion in annual transactions across more than a million businesses, which gives us a unique vantage point on how industries can adapt. Merchants who prepare now will be best positioned to capture growth. Those who wait risk falling behind.

Previously in this series:

Part 6: The behavioural science of agentic commerce: Why trust is the missing link

AI agents are shopping for us. But trust is deciding who gets to power the purchase.

Coming up next:

Part 8: Between a bot and a hard place

Agentic commerce could revolutionise how we shop – but unless it solves its own commercial and technical paradoxes, it risks collapsing under the weight of its success.