AI agents shift from recommendations to autonomous purchasing via new tokens

AI agents have transitioned from recommending products to executing purchases, a shift driven by access to payment credentials. VGS, which secures credentials for approximately one-third of all e-commerce GMV and stores 10 billion credentials, is central to this infrastructure. The 'wallet wars' have intensified as platforms like Stripe Link, which serves 300 million consumers and 1 million merchants, Shopify ShopPay with 1.7 million merchants, and PayPal with 400 million accounts rush to connect with agents. Current implementations often use walled-garden approaches; for example, when an agent attempted to buy lights from Walmart via Stripe Link, Stripe issued a one-time virtual Visa card because Link lacked a direct Walmart connection. This method breaks standard e-commerce norms, such as chargebacks and follow-on subscriptions, as the merchant sees a Stripe transaction rather than the consumer's actual card. Card networks are introducing 'agentic tokens' to solve this, allowing wallets to hand over domain-bound credentials to agents. VGS is the largest provisioner of these tokens, processing millions per week, which preserves consumer protections and merchant relationships. Terry Angelos argues that the shift from walled-garden solutions to open standards using agentic tokens is the necessary evolution for agentic commerce to scale while maintaining trust and merchant relationships. He noted, "We sort of have kicked off what I kind of call the wallet wars, where every wallet is now rushing to connect to the agents." Amazon has recently blocked the AI agent Muse, a move attributed to its business model as an advertising company that monetizes consumer eyeballs rather than just sales. Alex Rampell and Terry Angelos argue that merchant resistance to agentic commerce is driven by specific financial incentives, particularly advertising revenue, rather than mere technological conservatism. Rampell stated, "Amazon is an advertising company, and they want you and your eyeballs going to their website." In contrast, Walmart has not taken similar steps, potentially viewing agent-driven sales as beneficial given its last-mile delivery capabilities. The rise of agentic commerce also threatens to disrupt existing financial ecosystems, particularly credit card rewards and subscription models. Because agents optimize for the consumer's benefit, they may exclusively use cards with the highest rewards for specific categories, causing the broader points reward ecosystem to collapse as merchants and issuers rely on breakage models. Angelos believes the disruption to rewards and subscriptions is inevitable, while the increase in total consumer spending due to agent-driven convenience is currently underappreciated. He argued, "If agents are intermediating all of our transactions, and I'm only getting points on the card that gets me, I'm only using the card where I get points, the whole points reward ecosystem falls apart."