Agentic Commerce Atlas
How AI agents find stores and pay for things.
A map of the companies, protocols and payment rails behind agentic commerce, explained one layer at a time.
01The basics
Four steps between a request and a purchase.
An agent gets a request, looks for options, places an order and pays. Each step has its own set of companies.
- 01
Who is shopping?
The agent
Software that acts for a person: it reads the request, compares options and can place the order.
- 02
Where does it look?
Discovery
Search indexes, product feeds, apps and connectors. Each one ranks stores by its own rules.
- 03
How does it order?
Checkout
It either browses the store like a person or talks to it through a protocol such as ACP or UCP.
- 04
Who moves the money?
Payment
A wallet hands over a scoped credential, and a card network or a stablecoin settles it.
Trust. At every step the other side has to decide: is this a real agent, who sent it, and what is it allowed to do? That check is called Know Your Agent.
02Who's who
The players, grouped by what they do.
Most companies sit in one group. A few of the largest, like Google, show up in almost all of them.
Agent builders
14They own the conversation with the shopper, so they decide where to look and when to buy.
OpenAI
ChatGPT with store apps and ads; dots, always-on agents that can buy.
Google
Gemini and AI Mode with Universal Cart; the Gemini Spark agent runs on its own.
Meta
Meta Muse, an agent with its own browser; pays with Link or Shop Pay.
Anthropic
Claude, and Claude Duet: a cloud agent that pays with Link or Shop Pay.
Perplexity
Answer engine with Instant Buy in the chat and the Comet browser.
xAI
Grok Bot browses on its own and pays with Link, X Money or a saved card.
Protocols
11The shared language between agent, store and wallet. They define how an order is placed and who may pay.
Read: What are agentic protocols?OpenAI + Stripe. Checkout inside a chat, with a single-use payment token.
Google + Shopify. Cart, checkout and post-purchase between agent and store.
Google, now at the FIDO Alliance. Signed mandates let an agent buy alone.
MCP
Linux Foundation. How an agent uses a store's tools: catalog, stock, orders.
Coinbase, now at the Linux Foundation. HTTP 402 with a price, paid in USDC.
MPP
Stripe + Tempo. A session with a spending cap, paid in stablecoins or cards.
Payment providers
23They hold the credential and move the money. Whoever owns the user rarely owns the payment.
Intelligent Commerce and TAP: agent tokens with limits, live in Europe.
Mastercard
Agent Pay: Agentic Tokens bind a card to one agent and one policy.
Stripe
Processes ACP, runs the Link wallet for agents and co-authors MPP.
PayPal
Wallet inside Perplexity and Copilot; Store Sync sends catalogs to agents.
Shop Pay
Shopify's checkout; on by default in Meta Muse for eligible US stores.
Google Pay
A tokenized card from one cart that works across stores.
Know Your Agent – KYA
The identity and verification layer for AI agents: full visibility into agent traffic, who's behind each agent and what it may do, so a company can safely accept them.
Read: Why banks can't tell which agents to trust
Works with merchants, card networks, payment providers and agent builders, with a risk check before every action.
Merchants and catalogs
15Where the agent ends up. What they expose (a feed, an app, a checkout) decides whether an agent can buy.
Shopify
Its catalog is built into ChatGPT, Muse and Copilot.
Amazon
Own catalog and agent; blocks third-party agents.
Walmart
Its Sparky assistant runs in ChatGPT; Agent Gateway for outside agents in beta.
Expedia
An app inside ChatGPT, called by name or suggested.
Instacart
An app inside ChatGPT; checkout hands off to Instacart's own site.
Taobao
Qwen orders here through Taobao Instant Commerce.
Everyone else
17The plumbing: where money settles, how a site knows it is talking to an agent, and the tools agents run on.
USDC
The stablecoin most agent-to-API payments settle in.
Skyfire
Know Your Agent: a signed credential a merchant can verify.
Cloudflare
Verifies signed agents (Web Bot Auth) and keeps a directory of known bots.
Kernel
Cloud browsers for agents; swaps in the real card at the edge.
Rye
One API that completes a purchase at any online store.
Pix
Brazil's instant payments. Iniciador's MCP lets agents propose a Pix.
03The map
Where each one sits, and who connects to whom.
Pick any stop: an agent, a protocol, a wallet or a card network. The map shows only the purchase paths that run through it.
The agent or assistant that starts it
Selected
Grok Bot
4 purchase paths. Tap any stop in a path to follow it.
Card saved in its vault
LiveSigns in with the user's logins; a vault card fills in without asking each time.
- Who buys
- Route
- Wallet
- Money rail
Grok Bot with Link
LivePays with a one-time Stripe Link card. US only.
- Who buys
- Route
- Wallet
- Money rail
X Money
LivePays from a connected X Money account. xAI doesn't say how it settles; X Money issues a Visa debit card.
- Who buys
- Route
- Wallet
- Money rail
Shop Pay
LiveChecks out with Shop Pay at Shopify stores.
- Who buys
- Route
- Wallet
- Money rail
Who buys
The agent or assistant that starts it
Agents
In the browser
Checkout route
How the order reaches the store
Wallet
What hands over the credential
Money rail
Where the money settles
04Discovery
How an agent finds a store.
Each agent looks in different places, and each place ranks by its own rules.
- A
Search indexes
Most agents still search the web first, so SEO and reviews still count.
- B
Product feeds
Product cards come from a structured feed with price and stock, not from the page.
- C
Apps and connectors
A store inside the agent, approved by the platform.
- D
Agent registries
Technical agents look in the MCP Registry, skills hubs and the x402 Bazaar.
FindingThe feed is the new SEO: without one, a store disappears from answers built on product cards.
05Checkout
Four ways a purchase closes.
Most of the market still runs on the first: an agent filling in a form like a person.
- A
Browse like a person
The agent fills in the store's own checkout. The fastest-growing path, and no protocol covers it.
- B
Checkout protocol
Agent and store exchange a cart and a one-time token. The store stays merchant of record.
Read: What is ACP?, What is UCP?
- C
Network token
A card token bound to one agent, with limits set at the bank. Live in Europe, piloting elsewhere.
- D
Pay per request
No checkout at all: the API names a price and the agent pays in stablecoins.
Read: What is x402?
FindingTrust is the least resolved layer: every path handles identity and disputes its own way.
06Agent-ready
Let agents buy from you, safely.
Every path on the map ends at someone's site. Being found is half the work; the other half is knowing which agents to let in.
Know which agent is at your door, and what it may do.
Beltic checks every agent that reaches your site, API or MCP server, traces it back to who sent it, and applies your rules before it acts.
- 01
Agent visibility
An identity for every agent, with its operator and origin on every request.
- 02
Policy engine
Your rules for what agents may do: let trusted ones through, step up or block the rest.
- 03
Intent intelligence
Reads what the agent is trying to do (searching, ordering, paying) and weighs the risk.
The merchant playbook
6 places to get found by agents, each with how to do it and how much effort it takes.
Desk review of public sources through October 2026. Logos are trademarks of their owners, used to identify each company; Beltic is not affiliated with them.