Agentic AI, Financial Crime and the Future of Payments
Agentic AI is moving rapidly from emerging technology to a live commercial channel. Juniper Research estimates that agentic commerce will account for around $8 billion in transaction value in 2026, potentially reaching $1.5 trillion by 2030. Grand View Research separately values the agentic commerce technology market at $7.7 billion in 2026, forecasting growth to $65.5 billion by 2033.
The infrastructure is already being built. OpenAI and Stripe launched the Agentic Commerce Protocol with ChatGPT Instant Checkout in September 2025, while Mastercard Agent Pay, Visa Intelligent Commerce and Google's commerce infrastructure are developing a payments ecosystem in which the "user" behind a transaction may increasingly be software rather than a person.
Adoption is still at an early stage, which is precisely why the governance conversation matters now. Checkout.com's 2026 research found that AI agents currently touch just 3% of transactions in the UK and US, yet 89% of merchants are already preparing for agentic commerce and 72% believe consumers will adopt agent-led shopping faster than businesses are prepared for.
Consumer appetite is developing quickly too. Nearly 47% of UK and US consumers said they planned to use an AI agent for Christmas shopping, while shoppers reported being willing to allow an AI agent to spend an average of £177 per purchase without additional approval.
This development is taking place against an already significant financial crime backdrop. UK Finance recorded £1.17 billion lost to fraud in 2024, including £572.6 million in card fraud and £450 million in APP fraud. Deloitte has separately projected that generative AI could contribute to US fraud losses rising from $12.3 billion in 2023 to $40 billion by 2027.
And these figures do not yet represent agentic payments operating at scale.
That creates a critical window for the sector. Payment controls, fraud frameworks and legal responsibilities were largely designed for a world in which the person initiating a transaction was human. As autonomous agents begin searching, deciding and purchasing on our behalf, new questions emerge around identity, authorisation, liability, manipulation, fraud and accountability.
The infrastructure is real. Consumer appetite is forming. Criminal opportunity is evolving. But governance is still catching up.
On 24 September in Manchester, we are bringing together legal, criminological and industry perspectives to examine what happens when AI becomes an economic actor and how organisations can prepare before agentic commerce reaches scale.