MAG Insights

Agentic commerce is emerging as a significant evolution in how consumers discover, evaluate, and purchase products and services. As artificial intelligence (AI) agents increasingly take on tasks such as product research, price comparison, payment selection, and transaction execution, the payments ecosystem is entering a new phase, one in which merchants will need to play an active role in shaping the rules, standards, and economics of agent-driven transactions.

To help address these changes, earlier this year the MAG established an Agentic Commerce Working Group (ACWG). The group brought together MAG members to develop a clear merchant perspective on agentic commerce and identify practical ways to help merchants have a meaningful voice as this ecosystem develops.

Building a Common Merchant Perspective

One of the working group's primary goals was to establish a common merchant position on the governance of agentic commerce. This included examining both the opportunities AI agents may create for merchants and the potential challenges that could emerge as agents become intermediaries between consumers and merchants.

The working group served as a forum for members to share knowledge, discuss emerging developments, and collaborate on issues that affect the merchant community. The resulting insights are intended to help MAG engage effectively with payment networks, technology providers, AI companies, processors, orchestration platforms, and standards organizations on the evolution of agentic commerce.

A central theme is ensuring that merchants are not simply participants in the development of agentic commerce, but equal partners in determining how the ecosystem evolves.

Addressing Emerging Economic and Operational Questions

The growth of agent-initiated transactions raises a number of questions for merchants. Among them are how existing economics may change, who bears responsibility when something goes wrong, and how merchants maintain control over their data and payment-routing decisions.

The working group examined several areas, including:

• Protecting merchant economics from new fraud risks, fee stacking, and potential liability shifts.
• Preserving merchant routing rights in an AI-driven payments environment.
• Protecting merchant data ownership and sovereignty.
• Establishing clearer approaches to identifying AI agents involved in transactions.
• Exploring governance and standards that can provide greater transparency and consistency across the ecosystem.

These issues are particularly important because agentic commerce introduces new participants and layers between merchants and consumers. Understanding how those relationships could affect cost, risk, data, and control was an important part of the group's work.

Research, Collaboration, and Industry Engagement

The working group's scope extended beyond internal discussion. A consulting firm was engaged to conduct research and analysis and engage with key stakeholders across the agentic commerce ecosystem.

Stakeholder interviews provided an opportunity to understand how different participants, including payment networks, processors, AI providers, technology companies, and standards organizations, are approaching agentic commerce. The group also hosted a number of review calls to refine the findings and develop practical deliverables.

The group's scope was focused on broader governance, standards, merchant economics, and ecosystem engagement. Detailed dispute-resolution frameworks specific to agent-initiated transactions, as well as the design of an industry certification program for AI agents, were outside the working group's scope.

What the Working Group Delivered

The initiative was designed to produce resources that MAG and its members can use to understand the agentic commerce landscape and engage with their stakeholders to create better outcomes for merchants and their customers.

The key deliverables were the Agentic Commerce Market Intelligence Report and the Merchant Position Paper. The Market Intelligence Report provides a foundation on the state of agentic commerce, including an overview of key participants and their activities. It also identified gaps in the merchant community's current position.

The Merchant Position Paper explores seven positions that function as an integrated set of foundational conditions for merchant participation in agentic commerce, addressing issues such as:

• Data ownership
• Liability allocation
• AI-agent identification
• Merchant routing rights
• Governance and industry standards.

A summary of the Position Paper was presented at the W3C/GS1 Workshop: E-commerce for Humans and AI Agents in early September. The workshop allowed World Wide Web stakeholders to share experiences of creating content with AI Agents in mind with a focus on eCommerce. It explored the practices that could help retailers, brands, LLM and AI Agent providers, SEO practitioners, online data providers, and others remain visible and useful through emerging agentic protocols. Feedback on the presentation was overwhelmingly positive, with several participants indicating that the positions outlined would serve as a valuable reference for their own work in agentic commerce.

A Collaborative Effort

The working group was structured around collaboration among MAG members. Representatives from MAG member companies contributed their expertise and participated in reviewing the deliverables, recommending enhancements and clarifications. An outside consultant was responsible for stakeholder interviews, development of deliverables, and management of the engagement timeline. The structure was intended to combine merchant expertise with external research and industry perspectives, creating resources that are both informed by members' experiences and grounded in broader market intelligence.

Why Merchant Participation Matters

Agentic commerce has the potential to change the traditional relationship between consumers, merchants, payment providers, and technology platforms. As AI agents increasingly participate in commerce, decisions about data, transaction routing, fees, fraud, liability, and standards could have lasting implications for merchants.

The AGCW provided MAG members with a structured opportunity to examine those changes collectively and develop a shared merchant perspective. Ultimately, the group's success will be measured not only by completing the deliverables, but also by the practical value its recommendations provide to the broader MAG membership.

By bringing merchants together early in the development of agentic commerce, MAG aims to help ensure that the emerging ecosystem addresses merchant needs, preserves meaningful merchant rights, and creates a foundation for sustainable participation as AI-driven commerce continues to evolve.

Both the Agentic Commerce Market Intelligence Report and the Merchant Position Paper, as well as the MAG’s W3C/GS1 Workshop presentation, are available to merchant members and can be found on the MAG Learning Center.