Agentic Commerce: AI Agents That Buy & Sell

Commerce

67% of Retailers Say They Plan to Open Catalogs to AI Agents. Fewer Than a Handful Have Actually Done It.

Retailers plan to be agent-ready in two years. The calendar is less patient: Apple's HomeView ships Nov 13, Wells Fargo's AI-agent terms take effect Nov 24, Black Friday falls Nov 27 — and only 15% of merchants hold the data agents need.

◆ Tessa VaughnYesterday

Commerce

Invoices and Bills, Not Carts: The First Real Agent Payments of the Season

Visa, BILL and Billtrust have a registered agent paying approved invoices end to end, and Sierra's agents are taking card payments mid-call. The consumer cart still stalls at 17% comfort, because the invoice approval exists before the agent does.

◆ Tessa VaughnOct 22

Commerce

The Same Banks Writing the Rules for AI Agents Are the Ones Locking Them Out

Bank of America and Wells Fargo sit on both lists: the open standard's roster and this month's lockout wave. The protocol is a draft. The walls are live. And Wells Fargo's liability contract lands three days before Black Friday.

◆ Tessa VaughnOct 21

Commerce

The November Deadline: Holiday Peak vs. Liability Shift

With Apple's HomeView shipping and Wells Fargo's new liability regime taking effect just 72 hours before Black Friday, the first agentic holiday peak arrives under a structural mismatch.

◆ Tessa VaughnOct 21

Commerce

Sierra and Stripe Let Agents Take Card Payments Inside Phone Calls. The Agent Never Sees the Card.

Cedar's patients are paying medical bills mid-call while card digits route straight to Stripe, past the agent. It answers the credential problem behind this month's bank lockouts, not the liability problem, and a human still keys every digit.

◆ Tessa VaughnOct 21

Commerce

Evervault’s Browser Tokens Solve Credential Theft. The Banks Weren’t Worried About Credential Theft.

The Money20/20 launch lets agents pay without exposing card data and without any bank or merchant adoption. The same product page markets anti-bot features that help agents slip past detection – the behavior this week's bank lockouts named.

◆ Tessa VaughnOct 20

Commerce

The Banks Locked Agents Out. This Week an Agent Paid an Invoice Through the Front Door.

A live pilot has a registered, tokenized agent completing buyer-approved invoice payments through supplier portals – the mechanism this week's bank lockouts said was missing. Scale, GA timing and liability stay undisclosed.

◆ Tessa VaughnOct 20

Commerce

The Holiday Fraud Test Is Weeks Away and the Agent Stack Isn’t Ready

Agentic orders across Forter's network quadrupled since August and automated fraud doubled with them. October shipped the identity, fraud, checkout and insurance layers in four weeks. The first holiday-scale test of that stack arrives Nov 26.

◆ Tessa VaughnOct 20

Commerce

The Access Tax Amazon Imposed on Shopping Agents Just Arrived at Your Bank

JPMorgan, Schwab, BofA and Citi locked the door. Wells Fargo rewrote the contract instead — and that tells you where the real problem sits.

◆ Tessa VaughnOct 20

Commerce

58% Research With AI. 17% Trust It to Finish.

The first complete consumer funnel for AI shopping leaks at every stage. October answered with four new infrastructure layers and a conference that declared the pilot phase over.

◆ Tessa VaughnOct 20