Building The Future of Agentic Commerce

Building The Future of Agentic Commerce

From Go Slow to Grow Fast by Mercury Fund

May 5, 2026 · 59 min

About this episode

The episode discusses the future of commerce through AI and software agents that automate transactions.

As AI becomes a bigger part of everyday life, we take a look at how it can be applied in commerce, where software agents can search, decide, and complete transactions on a user’s behalf. Moderated by Blair Garrou, this session at Mercury Fund Day at The Ion breaks down the shift from real-time, user-driven checkouts to systems based on ongoing permissions and delegation. The panel features Matt Bouchner (Satsuma.ai), Coert Voorhees (LISNR), and Aileen Allen (Mercury Fund), who discuss how new payment rails and machine-readable systems are making this possible and where the biggest opportunities will be as this new model of commerce takes shape. 🎧 Episode Highlights [08:17]: Building the infrastructure layer powering agentic commerce across retailers [15:53]: From “bot equals bad” to “bot equals customer” in retail adoption [23:38]: The gap between payment protocols and real merchant adoption [28:20]: Why retailers are still in experimentation, not full-scale deployment [47:01]: The tipping point: when consumers get used to buying through agents Key Takeaways: ● Agentic commerce is shifting transactions from user-driven sessions to delegated, always-on workflows. Instead of…

People in this episode

Host: Blair Garrou

Guests: Matt Bouchner, Coert Voorhees, Aileen Allen

Topics covered

  • agentic commerce
  • AI in commerce
  • software agents
  • payment systems
  • retail technology
  • transaction automation

Keywords

  • AI
  • commerce
  • software agents
  • transactions
  • payment rails
  • retail
  • automation

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Mercury Fund, Satsuma.ai, LISNR

Places: The Ion

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