← All postsBlog<br>The Reasons Agentic Commerce Hasn't Taken Off Yet<br>Kevin Fee·August 13, 2026

Agentic commerce is still in the early adopter phase of the product lifecycle. Agents can't get a bank account or a credit card without a person's name attached. Most people don't know their agents can make purchases for them. Even if some people have thought about the agent shopping for them, they probably don't know what an MCP server is or how to connect one. There is a group of people who do know, and who worry that agentic commerce is unsafe. They are right to worry. They just don't know the risks are controllable now. And on the other side of the transaction, most merchants haven't built for any of this yet. This post attempts to explain the state of agentic commerce, how to make agentic commerce safe, and why it seems to be growing slower than expected.

Agents cannot get their own credit card or bank account because there is no way to hold AI agents by themselves accountable. There is no way to get recourse on an AI agent. Since the AI agent doesn't have a house, a family, etc. there is no way to ensure an agent won't overdraft a bank account or never pay back a loan. Therefore, humans will always have a role in claiming responsibility for AI agents and will be held accountable on behalf of their agents. That isn't a temporary gap that better models will close. It means every agent purchase runs on a human's credential, and something has to sit between the two deciding what the agent is actually allowed to do with it.

People haven't even considered their AI agent buying something. It isn't that people don't have pain points that this would solve. Ordering the same groceries every week or placing a food order with 10 people are painful. If people knew an AI agent could do this for them, a lot of them would let the agent do it. But almost nobody is using their agents this way today.

Right now (August 2026), it requires some technical know how to get your agent set up to make purchases. For example, one must know what an MCP server is and know how to set that up. If technical, this is easy. However, picture a senior citizen trying to set up an MCP connection. It would not go well. If companies like OpenAI and Anthropic shipped a default payment tool, more people would be using agents for commerce. Apple could also make a serious impact if Siri could actually do things (but that is another story).

The merchant side is behind too. Most checkout flows still assume a human is on the other end, and the rules for what happens when an agent buys the wrong thing are not settled. If an agent orders four of something at 2am, who eats the chargeback? The shopper, the merchant, or the model provider? Nobody wants to be the answer to that question, so most merchants are waiting.

Some people who know agents can make purchases and have the technical ability to connect an MCP server worry about the safety of AI agents purchasing. They worry that the agent will buy the wrong things, the same thing multiple times, go rogue, or get defrauded. These people raise good points. The risks are real. They are also solvable.

Authoryze can create scoped individual payment tokens using Visa Intelligent Commerce and Mastercard Agent Pay so that the credential only works at a specific store for a specific amount. For example, an agent can be limited to $200 for Whole Foods. Authoryze also checks the idempotency key the agent sends along with the purchase request to ensure one purchase per intent. Additionally, Authoryze runs additional duplicate checks in case the agent submits a different idempotency key. Authoryze also allows users to create rules. If the agent requests a purchase outside of the rules, the agent never receives a payment token.

AI agents are improving rapidly. The early adopters are using agents to buy everything from their groceries to API credits. But the model getting smarter doesn't make it accountable. The person behind it is still the one on the hook. Which means agentic commerce doesn't scale on better agents. It scales on better controls.

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The Reasons Agentic Commerce Hasn't Taken Off Yet | Authoryze Blog