Agentic commerce: Identity, rails and routing
AI agents are starting to buy on our behalf. But when an agent checks out, who is it, whose money is it spending, and which rails carry the payment? Stanford MS&E and Stanford OpenLab are hosting a panel on identity, payment rails and routing in agentic commerce, with builders from startups and the largest commerce and infrastructure platforms. Moderated discussion and audience Q&A, then networking. A lead-in to the Stanford Agentic Commerce Summit on 26 January 2027.
Agenda
5:30–6:30pm: Panel discussion and audience Q&A
6:30–7:00pm: Networking
Speakers
Visa: Speaker TBD
Cherian Joseph, Global Head of Product, Design and Trust - Payments and Agentic Commerce, Amazon
Cherian leads Product for Amazon agentic commerce that builds payment experiences that let Amazon's AI agents, including Buy for Me and Alexa+, complete purchases with merchants across the web. His work covers agentic commerce partnerships with major catalog and payment providers, payment methods, and fraud and risk strategy. Since joining Amazon in 2016, he has built and scaled products across Amazon Pay and Seller Services and Amazon Private Brands. Before Amazon, he advised C-suite leaders at McKinsey & Company. He holds an MBA from INSEAD and an MS from Georgia Tech.
Will Papper, Director of Product (Agent Payments), Cloudflare
Will is a Director of Product at Cloudflare, where he focuses on agentic micropayments via stablecoins. Before joining Cloudflare, Will ran a blockchain startup called Syndicate that raised $28M from A16Z and others. Will has a BA in Philosophy from Stanford.
Ankit Agarwal, CTO, Skyfire
Ankit Agarwal is CTO of Skyfire, where he invented KYAPay, the open "Know Your Agent" protocol that lets AI agents present verified identity and payment credentials to websites and APIs. He brings more than 20 years of experience building security, fraud and payments infrastructure, holds six U.S. patents, and is co-author of six IETF Internet-Drafts advancing KYAPay as an open standard.
Walt Leung, CPO & Cofounder, Natural
Walt is the CPO & cofounder at Natural, a Series A agentic payments company. He is responsible for Natural's product and GTM. He previously spent nearly a decade in operating roles ranging from venture capital to engineering management.
Emma Cui, Moderator, Stanford OpenLab
Emma is a fellow at Stanford OpenLab, where she researches agentic payment. She previously co-founded and ran LongHash Ventures, an early-stage VC firm that made around 100 investments in on-chain financial infrastructure. Before that she worked at McKinsey, ANZ and Macquarie.