1053. Insights: Agentic payments: Revolution or just better orchestration?

In this episode of Fintech Insider Insights, host Benjamin Ensor explores the emerging concept of agentic payments—where AI agents, rather than humans, make payment decisions on behalf of users. The discussion, featuring Rory O'Neill of Checkout.com, investor Sahar Atari-Poor, and Sam Bobojev of Fintech Wrap Up, dissects the transformative potential and profound challenges of shifting from human-initiated to agent-driven transactions. Key themes include the reimagining of trust, identity, and liability in a world where agents negotiate, purchase, and manage payments autonomously. The panel highlights that while the underlying payment rails remain largely unchanged, the decision layer is fundamentally disrupted, requiring new protocols for agent authentication (Know Your Agent), permission boundaries, and audit trails. Businesses may benefit from reduced branding dependency, as product metadata and API-friendly descriptions become more critical than traditional marketing. However, the biggest hurdles remain around consumer trust, risk allocation, and the lack of a cohesive liability framework. The conversation underscores that agentic commerce is not just about automation but a systemic redesign of digital commerce, with value shifting from checkout interfaces to the intelligence layer that governs agent behavior. The episode concludes with a consensus that trust and liability are the two pillars that must be addressed for agentic payments to become mainstream. Sam advocates for a central regulatory or institutional body to assume liability, while Rory emphasizes building consumer trust through reliability and transparency. Sahar calls for a mindset shift—treating AI agents like limited liability entities with risk tolerance agreements, similar to asset management. The panel agrees that adoption will begin with low-risk, repeat purchases and gradually expand as infrastructure matures. Ultimately, the future of payments lies not in new rails but in rethinking the entire ecosystem around intent, accountability, and human-AI collaboration.