The promise of agentic commerce has long been heralded as the next frontier in payments. But is it finally here?
Agentic commerce refers to AI-powered bots that can autonomously browse, compare, negotiate and complete purchases on a user's behalf — authenticating payments without human intervention at the point of sale.
Mastercard appears to have fired the starting gun in the race for agentic commerce here in Australia, processing the country’s first authenticated agentic transactions in partnership with the Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, Maincode and IPSI.
“Other partners have alluded to this being 12 months to 18 months away but we very much believe that the frameworks and the capabilities are here now,” Mastercard senior vice president Australasia Surin Fernando told Capital Brief. “It’s very much now up to the retailers and the marketplaces.”
