The Future of Commerce: How AI-Powered Agents Are Reshaping E-Commerce and Fintech

The digital commerce landscape is on the brink of a seismic shift, driven by a revolutionary force: agentic commerce. By 2025, AI agents—autonomous software programs capable of browsing, selecting, and purchasing goods on behalf of users—are no longer a sci-fi concept but a tangible reality. This shift is not just about convenience; it's about redefining the entire value chain of e-commerce and fintech, from customer engagement to payment infrastructure. For investors, the key lies in identifying the early-stage infrastructure and platform players poised to dominate this new era.

The Agentic Commerce Revolution

Agentic commerce is powered by proactive AI agents that act independently to streamline shopping and payment processes. Unlike traditional generative AI, which responds to user prompts, agentic AI makes decisions and executes actions without human intervention. For example, Mastercard's Agent Pay and Visa's Intelligent Commerce have introduced tokenization protocols that allow AI agents to securely authenticate and complete transactions. This eliminates friction in checkout, reduces cart abandonment, and opens the door to fully automated, personalized shopping experiences.

The market potential is staggering. The total addressable market (TAM) for agentic commerce is projected to reach $136 billion by 2025, with a long-term potential of $1.7 trillion by 2030. This growth is fueled by advancements in AI, rising consumer demand for efficiency, and the adoption of AI by major players like Amazon, Google, and OpenAI.

The Infrastructure Play: Early-Stage Winners

To capitalize on this disruption, investors must focus on the infrastructure layer—the platforms and tools enabling AI agents to interact with e-commerce and fintech ecosystems. Here are the key players to watch:

1. New Gen: This startup is building AI-native storefronts that transform static product catalogs into structured, AI-readable data. By leveraging Visa's Intelligent Commerce sandbox, New Gen allows AI agents to check out programmatically, bypassing traditional web infrastructure limitations. With AI-driven traffic to retail sites surging by 1,200% in early 2025, New Gen's platform is critical for brands to capture high-intent shoppers.

2. PayOS: A rising fintech startup, PayOS is unifying the AI agent payment experience by simplifying integration with digital wallets and APIs. Its focus on tokenization and fraud prevention aligns with the security demands of agent-driven transactions, positioning it as a key enabler for merchants and payment processors.

3. Firmly and Violet.io: These startups are pioneering the facilitation model, where AI platforms (like Perplexity or Microsoft CoPilot) create and checkout carts on behalf of users. Their tools streamline backend operations for merchants, ensuring compatibility with AI agents while maintaining customer relationships.

4. Stripe and PayPal: While not early-stage, these giants are accelerating the agentic commerce shift. Stripe's Order Intents API and PayPal's Agent Toolkit are already enabling AI agents to execute transactions securely. Their ecosystem partnerships will likely amplify the growth of startups within the space.

Challenges and Opportunities

Despite the promise, agentic commerce faces hurdles: data privacy concerns, fraud risks, and merchant resistance to disintermediation. However, startups like Firmly and Violet.io are addressing these issues with real-time integration hubs and biometric authentication protocols. Additionally, regulatory clarity is emerging, with card networks and regulators working to define liability frameworks for AI-driven transactions.

For investors, the opportunity lies in backing companies that solve these challenges while building scalable infrastructure. The affiliate model (e.g., Profound, xFunnel) and marketplace model (e.g., Mirakl) also present compelling opportunities, as they help merchants optimize visibility in AI search and manage fulfillment in agent-driven ecosystems.

Investment Strategy: Where to Allocate Capital

1. High-Growth Startups: Prioritize early-stage platforms like New Gen and PayOS, which are directly addressing infrastructure gaps. These companies are likely to see explosive growth as AI adoption accelerates.
2. Fintech Enablers: Consider established fintechs like Visa (V) and Mastercard (MA), which are pioneering secure payment solutions for AI agents. Their partnerships with startups will drive long-term value.
3. E-Commerce Integrators: Shopify (SHOP) and Adobe (ADBE) are embedding agentic commerce capabilities into their ecosystems. Their ability to scale AI-driven tools for merchants could unlock new revenue streams.

The Bottom Line

Agentic commerce is not a passing trend—it's the next frontier of digital commerce. By 2030, AI agents could handle everything from grocery orders to B2B inventory management, creating a trillion-dollar market. For investors, the key is to act early: target infrastructure players building the rails for this AI-driven future and position for long-term compounding as the ecosystem matures.

The time to invest is now. The AI-powered shopping revolution is already here, and those who build and back the right tools will reap the rewards for decades.