Remember when “agentic commerce” demos always stopped at checkout? That wasn’t a product decision — it was an auth problem. Nobody wanted to let an AI agent loose with a credit card.

The breakthrough: just-in-time auth. Think disposable payment credentials that only work for one store, one exact amount, then vanish. Combine that with payment guardrails — weekly spend caps, whitelisted vendors — and suddenly AI agents can safely handle real purchases.

This isn’t just a demo. Early adopters are already running it in production:

- Logistics companies auto-purchasing shipping supplies when inventory runs low

- Marketing teams topping up ad credits based on performance triggers

- Facilities managers automating recurring orders under $500

Why it matters:

- Traditional e-commerce → human finds, human buys

- AI-assisted commerce → AI suggests, human buys

- Agentic commerce → AI finds, evaluates, and buys

That last step is the leap: from AI as advisor to AI as autonomous economic actor. It turns agents into participants in the economy, not just fancy search engines.

Curious to hear thoughts: what are the security, economic, or UX implications once AI agents can actually spend money?