Rules for the agent era

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

As agentic commerce moves from concept to reality, it could revolutionize e-commerce, but trust – as always in payments! – will be the most decisive factor for mainstream adoption. Rules regulating the space should be designed to ensure that agentic commerce is safe for consumers and merchants, while not stifling innovation. Striking this difficult balance will be a key challenge for policymakers.

Previously in this series, we introduced the shift to AI-led buying and payments, examined fraud dynamics, mapped emerging models and explored the tension between commercial, technical and consumer interests. This chapter focuses on the key decisions policymakers and regulators will have to make to ensure agentic commerce scales responsibly – and competitively – across markets.

Why proportionate and clear regulatory framework is a growth lever

Autonomous agents will have to operate with clear rules on identity, consent, liability and data use. Being at the forefront of these issues, we will continue to educate and urge policymakers to engage with the industry early to design proportionate, interoperable rules. This will boost innovation and reduce uncertainty for consumers, merchants, payment providers and platforms.

The market signals are strong – agentic commerce is projected to grow from $13.81 billion in 2025 to $140.80 billion by 2032, with AI agents contributing an estimated $2.6–$4.4 trillion to global GDP by 2030 – but only if trust is ensured.

Strengthening the foundation and building on top

Policymakers are not starting from scratch. Existing initiatives and regulatory frameworks touch the core of agentic commerce:

• AI regulation – U.S. NIST AI Risk Management Framework emphasizes risk governance; the EU AI Act imposes binding, risk-based obligations and liability clarity; the U.K. is taking a principles-led path that pairs innovation with a voluntary cyber code. Altogether, the direction of travel around the world for AI regulation is toward transparency, documentation and human oversight for AI use cases in payments, including agentic commerce.
• Open banking and data sharing – PSD2 governs data access today in the EU, but PSD3 along with the upcoming FIDA framework will soon update and expand these rules. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the 1033 Rule (Personal Financial Data Rights) is slowly moving forward despite some key regulatory challenges. Secure and standardized access to financial data will enable agents to operate effectively across different channels, while clear consent and data management will have to be offered to consumers.
• Digital identity – The EU is moving fast with the rollout of its digital ID wallet to be accessible to all by the end of 2026, and the U.K. Government is now consulting a future digital ID scheme. Meanwhile, the NIST pilots and network initiatives are progressing in the U.S. This fully operational digital ID infrastructure will be essential in distinguishing legitimate agents from fraudulent bots and malicious actors, which is critical for trust in agentic commerce.
• Digital assets – Regulatory clarity on stablecoins across the EU’s MiCA, the U.K. FCA regime and U.S.’ GENIUS Act could play a key role in the development of agentic as programmable money meets programmable buyers.

A public policy blueprint for agentic commerce

We have identified six priorities to help policymakers and industry converge on agentic rules that would protect consumers and merchants, while enabling progress:

1. Engage early with industry to inform future rules

Initiate informal discussions with the key players in the ecosystem and set up advisory panels to understand key developments and challenges in agentic commerce.

2. Adopt principles-based regulation

Approach new rules for agentic commerce with clearly identified risks reflecting the agent’s level of autonomy and sector-specific challenges to avoid disproportionate or one-size-fits-all rules.

3. Ensure human oversight and dynamic consent management

Urge the industry to offer transparent consent models giving consumers real-time control of the agent’s actions and of its personal data, in line with existing laws.

4. Harmonize privacy and data sharing rules

Align regional privacy standards and promote cross-border cooperation for secure, interoperable data exchange.

5. Urge the industry to adopt universal liability and Know-Your-Agent (KYA) standards

Promote industry collaboration on clear liability and KYA standards reliable to verify the consumer’s intent and the autonomous agent’s authorization before the transactions.

6. Accelerate existing digital initiatives to boost trust in agentic commerce

Drive unified investment and standards for digital ID, tokenization and payment innovations – enabling secure cryptographic authentication, fraud reduction and programmable transactions like stablecoins for trusted agentic commerce.

What we’re doing to shape the future regulation of agentic commerce

Worldpay is actively engaging with the industry and key policymakers around the world to educate and inform on the responsible use of AI in payments and the incredible opportunities (and some of the challenges) presented by agentic commerce. Here are some key initiatives from Worldpay to shape standards and future rules:

• Identity and authorization – We are partnering with identity verification specialist Trulioo to build robust safeguards for agentic commerce, centered on the emerging concept of "Know Your Agent."
• Fraud and dispute evolution – We have acquired the AI fraud prevention leader Ravelin to combat fraud and scams and we leverage their capabilities to enhance detection and mitigation with AI threats and build the right tools to ensure safety in the agentic commerce environment.
• Industry collaboration – We are actively working with Visa, Mastercard, Google, OpenAI and other key players in the space to address together some of the existing challenges in agentic.

Previously in this series:

Part 8: Between a bot and a hard place

Agentic commerce could transform shopping – but unless it resolves key paradoxes, it risks collapsing under its own weight.

Coming up next:

Part 10: What global consumers tell us about the next chapter of digital payments

New survey insights reveal how culture, trust and generational divides are shaping global attitudes toward AI shopping agents – and what that means for the future of payments.