Imagine a world where your personal AI assistant can effortlessly find and book flights, manage your budget and even negotiate the best deals on your behalf—all while keeping your financial data secure. This isn’t just a futuristic dream; agentic commerce is already making significant strides with its autonomous capabilities, speed and accuracy of transactions. The thought of delegating such tasks to an AI is both thrilling and a bit unsettling for many clients, and the key question is: How ready is your organization to embrace this development?
Spending year over year, between 2025 and 2029, on artificial intelligence (AI), will grow by 31.9%, according to data from the International Data Corporation’s (IDC) Worldwide Artificial Intelligence IT Spending Market Forecast. This investment, driven by the growth of Agentic AI-enabled applications and systems to manage agentic fleets, will reach $1.3 trillion in 2029, which underscores the substantial potential of this trend. The integration of agentic capabilities in payments is already underway. Google, collaborating with partners like Accenture, just unveiled Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) which provides a common language for secure, compliant transactions between agents and merchants, helping to prevent a fragmented ecosystem. Separately, many other players like PayPal have made their own agentic commerce play, with new tools for developers.
A standout feature of agentic AI is its ability to adapt, evolve and even make autonomous purchase decisions without human intervention. Agentic AI can navigate complex environments and handle a wide range of tasks from bill payments and investment management to tax filings, saving a considerable amount of time and reducing the risk of human error. It can analyze vast amounts of transaction data and insights, identify patterns and refine its decision-making process. This autonomy is particularly valuable in the realm of financial services, where agentic AI can provide customers with detailed reports on their spending habits, highlight areas where they can save money, and even suggest budget adjustments.
How interested are other industries in agentic payments?
Accenture recently conducted research on the Future of Money, surveying over 200 executives from various industries, including retail, telecommunications, gaming, insurance, automotive, travel and public services to understand their appetite for agentic payments services. The findings reveal that businesses are gearing up for a future where AI-driven systems will manage payments. Specifically, 57% of these executives believe that agentic payments will become mainstream within the next three years. The most popular use case globally is utility or recurring billing, where an AI-powered system can automatically manage recurring payments, select the payment date, method (e.g., card, direct debit) and apply discounts or deferrals based on customer data.
When considering the types of agentic payments services to offer commercial clients, it’s crucial to understand their priorities, as adoption rates will vary based on specific use cases and industry needs.
Here are some other agentic payments use cases that different industries are likely to adopt:
Challenges in agentic payments
While the benefits of agentic AI in payment systems are undeniable, financial institutions (FIs) recognize the challenges ahead. In the same Future of Money research, we asked over 200 CTOs and heads of payments at FIs about their concerns, and trust and security emerged as the top issues.
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- 87% believe that trust will be the most significant barrier to agentic payments adoption.
Interestingly, when corporate payments customers were asked which providers they would trust most for secure and compliant agentic payment solutions, global banks scored the highest (67%), closely followed by big tech companies like Amazon (64%). Even though banks see big tech as less of a threat, their slight trust advantage could be eroded if big tech companies demonstrate superior fraud prevention and a stronger commitment to customer interests.
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- 78% expect that fraud will increase significantly due to agentic commerce.
FIs are particularly concerned about unauthorized transactions executed by agents, including insider bots. They anticipate agents using synthetic voice to bypass voice authentication controls and agentic teams leveraging false fraud claims and falsified documentation. The growing sophistication of these threats underscores the need for FIs to enhance the resiliency of their security measures.
How ready are organizations for agent-based commerce and payments?
If you feel your organization’s tech infrastructure isn’t fully prepared to support agentic AI in payments, you’re not alone. 85% of FIs believe their current systems and scaling plans are insufficient to handle high-volume, autonomous agent-initiated transactions. Many of these institutions are investing in upgrading their infrastructure to prevent overload from the anticipated higher traffic volumes that agentic commerce might bring.
Readiness to combat agentic-driven fraud appears slightly higher, reflecting FIs’ serious concerns about this threat. However, it’s concerning that 60% of these organizations do not have a dedicated response plan with forensic tools to investigate agent-driven fraud.
Agentic AI in payments and commerce is no longer a fleeting trend. It has arrived and has the potential to revolutionize financial transactions, giving customers unprecedented control over their finances. This glimpse into how different FIs and corporate clients are preparing for payments in agentic commerce should prompt you to consider how your organization can harness its power while navigating the challenges of trust, security and resilience.
There is much more to explore from our research findings, and I’m excited to share them at Sibos 2025 in Frankfurt. If you plan to attend and would like a deeper discussion, please reach out to schedule a meeting with me or one of our experts. You can also visit our booth #G066, Level 3, Exhibition Hall 3. Learn more about our presence: Accenture at Sibos 2025
Thank you to Hannes Fourie, Suman Sharma and Pia Matoto for their contribution to this blog post.
Source: IDC news release, 26 August 2025, Agentic AI to Dominate IT Budget Expansion Over Next Five Years, Exceeding 26% of Worldwide IT Spending, and $1.3 Trillion in 2029, According to IDC, August 2025 https://my.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS53765225
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