Writing in Silicon Republic following Stripe Sessions 2026 in San Francisco, Square1 CTO Paul Conroy examines how AI agents are set to transform online commerce, creating new opportunities and challenges across payments, fraud prevention and digital infrastructure. Read the full article: “Opinion: Europe can’t afford to sit on the agentic commerce sidelines”.

Online commerce is entering a new phase where AI agents will increasingly research products, compare options and complete purchases on behalf of consumers. As these agents become more capable, businesses will need to ensure that product information, pricing and policies can be easily understood by machines, making structured data and common commerce standards increasingly important.

At the same time, AI-native services are creating demand for new payment models. Real-time, low-value transactions between agents and digital services could make technologies such as stablecoins and agent wallets an important part of future commerce infrastructure.

The growth of agentic commerce also presents significant challenges for fraud prevention. Traditional systems have been designed to identify and block automated behaviour, but legitimate AI agents often exhibit the same characteristics as the bots those systems were built to detect. New approaches to authentication, trust and risk management will be required.

While investment and innovation in this space are accelerating in the US, Europe faces the challenge of balancing regulation with commercial adoption. Businesses that begin preparing now by improving data quality, modernising payment models and strengthening fraud controls will be better positioned as AI-driven commerce becomes more widespread.

Read the full article on Silicon Republic: “Opinion: Europe can’t afford to sit on the agentic commerce sidelines”.