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Intent
User intent (in agent)
User asks the agent to find a product or service.
Foundations
Agentic payments, agentic commerce — what does all of this actually mean in practice? In this section, we define the core terms, explain how agents change the traditional buyer–merchant–payments relationship, and lay out the stages we see in the shift from assistive AI to delegated spending.
The three stages of eCommerce
Commerce has reinvented itself twice in twenty-five years, and each time the payment system has had to be rebuilt to match. Agentic commerce is the third stage and it is arriving faster than the plumbing built to carry it.
2000s
Stage 1
eCommerce
Humans browse and click. Digital PSPs emerge.
2010s
Stage 2
Mobile
Humans tap to pay. Wallets and tokenisation arrive; the iPhone resets checkout.
Today
Stage 3
Agentic
Agents browse, compare, and advise. Consumers already use AI, but most purchases still complete on traditional flows.
At each stage, the interface changed, consumer behaviour changed, and the payment layer had to be re-engineered before the new model could scale. The companies that built the rails early set the terms for everyone who arrived later. Right now, agentic is the stage being defined.
Agentic commerce only works if the whole payments industry moves together: AI platforms, card networks, banks, and merchants. The infrastructure to connect them doesn't exist yet.
Hilla Peled
SVP of Data Science and AI, Nuvei
Defining the age of agentic: commerce vs payments
Agentic commerce and agentic payments are already being used interchangeably across the industry, but they describe two very different things. One is about where decisions are made; the other is about where money actually moves.
Agentic commerce (today)
Most of what is live today is agentic commerce. An agent handles discovery. It searches, compares options, and recommends. When the consumer decides, the agent hands the purchase back to them, and payment is completed on the merchant's own checkout as a standard transaction. The agent does the shopping. The human still pays. Nothing underneath the payment has changed.
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Discovery
Agent discovery
Agent searches, compares, and recommends options.
Step 03 / 06
Decision
User decision
User selects a preferred option.
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Handoff
Handoff to merchant
Agent redirects the user to the merchant website.
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Checkout
Merchant-controlled checkout
User completes checkout on the merchant site.
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Payment
Traditional payment execution
Payment is processed as a standard eCommerce transaction.
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Agentic payments are the next step, and a different proposition. The consumer sets a mandate in advance, say a limit of two hundred dollars on a defined task. The agent then initiates and completes the transaction itself, inside its own environment, with no redirect to a merchant checkout. The point of initiating the payment moves from the human to the machine.
Agentic payments (future)
Discovery, authorisation, and payment all happen in the agent, with the agent initiating the transaction. The key shift occurs at step four: from a user-initiated payment to an agent-initiated payment. Step five introduces a dual validation layer, trust in the customer and trust in the agent acting on their behalf. Step six requires new network rules for liability, governance, and authentication.
Step 01 / 08
Intent
User intent (in agent)
User asks the agent to find a product or service.
Step 02 / 08
Discovery
Agent discovery
Agent searches, compares, and recommends options.
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Mandate
Mandate and authorisation
User authorises the agent to purchase on their behalf.
- Confirms purchase intent
- Defines mandate scope, e.g. buy under $200
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Trigger
Agent-triggered transaction
Agent initiates the transaction on behalf of the user.
- No redirect to merchant checkout
- Transaction originates within the agent environment
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Validation
Trust and validation
Transaction is validated across multiple parties.
- Cardholder identity verified
- Agent and mandate confirmed in scope
- Network and issuer approve the transaction
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Processing
In-agent payment processing
Payment is executed via a new transaction type.
- Processed as an agent-triggered payment
- Runs on new payment rails
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Fulfilment
Merchant fulfilment and confirmation
Merchant receives the order and processes fulfilment.
- Order confirmation returned to the agent
- Merchant handles fulfilment and customer communications
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Confirmation
Confirmation in agent
User receives confirmation within the agent interface.
- Order details
- Delivery updates
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That move, from a payment a person initiates to one an agent initiates, is where the infrastructure has to change. A transaction with no human at the checkout has to carry trust in two directions at once: trust in the consumer, validated as it is today, and trust in the agent acting for them, which has no equivalent in current rails. The agent has to prove it is authorized to act and that its mandate is valid and in scope. The network has to recognize an agent-initiated transaction. The issuer has to approve one. None of that exists in the flows running today, and it is the layer Nuvei is building.
But before we get into that, let's see what consumers have to say about what path to agentic payments looks like.