Visa-Commissioned Report Reveals How Acquirers Are Preparing for Agentic Commerce — Overconfidence in Existing Infrastructure and Three Real-World Barriers

PYMNTS and Visa Acceptance Solutions Release Joint Report

How Acquirers Prepare for Agentic Commerce - March 2026

A PYMNTS Intelligence report commissioned by Visa Acceptance Solutions

In March 2026, PYMNTS Intelligence published a report titled "How Acquirers Prepare for Agentic Commerce," commissioned by Visa Acceptance Solutions, analyzing how payment acquirers are preparing for agentic commerce. The study surveyed acquirers in the United States, UAE, and Brazil, revealing the industry's readiness for an era where AI agents autonomously select products and execute payments.

Visa predicts that millions of consumers will complete purchases via AI agents by the 2026 holiday season, making acquirer readiness an urgent priority.

Industry Trends

Agentic commerce has been rapidly becoming a reality from late 2025 through 2026. Visa announced the "Trusted Agent Protocol" in October 2025, building an open framework to distinguish legitimate AI agents from malicious bots. Currently, over 100 partners are collaborating globally, with more than 30 developing in the Visa Intelligent Commerce sandbox.

Meanwhile, PYMNTS research reports that retailers are being forced into structural changes for AI agent readiness, including "making product catalogs machine-readable," "building payment authority delegation models," and "redesigning dispute resolution processes." These waves of change are inevitably reaching acquirers positioned upstream from retail.

Key Findings — The Gap Between "Existing Infrastructure Is Enough" Optimism and Reality

The most notable finding in this report is that many acquirers believe their existing payment infrastructure can handle agentic commerce. The prevailing view is that payment rails themselves are technically capable.

However, there is a significant gap between technical capability and real-world implementation. The report identifies three practical barriers facing merchants.

Barrier One: Integration Costs and Legacy Systems. The cost for merchants to retrofit existing systems for AI agent compatibility is substantial, particularly severe for small and mid-sized businesses. According to PYMNTS reporting on Visa Intelligent Authorization, only 10% of smaller acquirers processing under $1 billion annually expressed "high confidence in meeting merchants' integrated shopping experience requirements."

Barrier Two: Fraud Detection and Identity Verification. Transactions by AI agents present a fundamental challenge — they "look like bots" to existing fraud detection systems. Visa reported a 450% increase in "AI agent"-related posts on the dark web in the six months leading up to early 2026. Acquirers recognize the need to prioritize strengthening three areas: fraud prevention, identity verification, and agent transaction management.

Barrier Three: Absence of Regulation and Liability Frameworks. When consumers delegate purchases to AI agents and disputes arise claiming "I didn't authorize that transaction," where does liability fall? Current consumer protection laws assume humans initiate transactions, and as of March 2026, no jurisdiction in the world has laws directly regulating agentic commerce.

Visa's Infrastructure Development and the Know Your Agent Movement

Behind the report lies Visa's own infrastructure development efforts. Visa Intelligent Authorization, whose availability expanded in March 2026, enables processing across major card networks through a single API integration, achieving 99.999% uptime and a 96.3% global approval rate. Axel Boye-Moller, Visa's head of value-added services for Asia Pacific, stated that "much of the current infrastructure was not designed for a new commerce era that includes agentic commerce, stablecoins, and digital wallets."

Another development acquirers should watch is the "Know Your Agent (KYA) framework." Based on joint research by PYMNTS and Trulioo, this framework proposes a third layer beyond traditional KYC (Know Your Customer) and KYB (Know Your Business) — "verification of autonomously acting agents." The survey found that approximately 90% of companies consider bot management a "major challenge," with inadequate identity management estimated to cause roughly $100 billion in annual losses from fraud, false transaction declines, and customer attrition.

Impact and Action Items for E-Commerce Businesses

While this report targets acquirers, it contains important implications for e-commerce businesses as well.

Evaluate your payment partner's "agent readiness." You should assess how well your acquirer or PSP (Payment Service Provider) can support transactions from AI agents. By leveraging modular third-party solutions, even smaller businesses can advance their readiness without expensive in-house development.

Prioritize tokenization. Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol is built on tokenization technology. Network tokens have become foundational technology for agentic commerce, from subscription management to fraud prevention and secure execution of AI agentic payments.

Redesign your dispute handling processes. You need to start planning chargeback and dispute handling workflows for transactions made by AI agents now. Given that liability rules remain undefined, there is a high likelihood that liability will fall on the merchant side.

Conclusion

This PYMNTS/Visa report highlights the gap between acquirers' perception and reality regarding agentic commerce. Technical optimism that "existing infrastructure can handle it" coexists with the severity of non-technical challenges around regulation, identity, and liability.

The next developments to watch are Visa's pilot program rollouts in Asia Pacific and Europe, and the progress of KYA framework industry standardization. Given Visa's projected timeline of "millions of consumers purchasing via AI agents by the 2026 holiday season," the remaining preparation window is far from generous for both acquirers and e-commerce businesses.