The next customer in an online store may not be human.
Over the past two years, AI agents have started moving from technological experiments to active participants in commerce. They can already search for products, compare prices and conditions, make decisions and complete payments on behalf of consumers.
And this shift could happen faster than many businesses expect.
As agentic commerce develops, it raises questions that go far beyond technology. Who is responsible when an AI agent makes a purchasing decision? How is the consumer’s intent verified? What level of autonomy should an agent have? And what happens when something goes wrong?
For eCommerce businesses, there is an even broader question: what changes when the customer making the purchase is an algorithm rather than a person influenced by emotions, habits and impulses?
Agentic payments will be among the topics discussed at DIGI PAY 2026, taking place on 8 October at Inter Expo Center in Sofia, Bulgaria. The event will also feature a live end-to-end demonstration of an agentic payment.
The discussion on market readiness and the challenges surrounding agentic payments will bring together Nikolay Spasov, CEO and Chairman of the Management Board of D Commerce Bank; Ivan Hadzhov, Director of Business Development at Mastercard; and Dimitar Dimitrov, Agentic Commerce Expert at the Bulgarian E-commerce Association (BEA) and owner of SocialScore.io.
The discussion will be moderated by Merdihan Ismailov, Vice President, Products & Solutions (Fintech) at Sirma Group JSC.
From experiments to a potentially mass market
In recent years, technology and financial companies have invested heavily in agentic commerce, turning it into one of the rapidly developing areas at the intersection of AI, payments and eCommerce.
A growing number of tests and pilot projects have demonstrated how AI agents can take over an increasing share of the customer journey – from product discovery and comparison to purchasing and payment.
Forecasts suggest that the transition from experimentation to broader adoption could happen within the next few years.
According to J.P. Morgan, the value of commerce conducted through AI agents could reach between $2 trillion and $5 trillion globally by 2030.
Juniper Research expects the number of global agentic commerce transactions across B2B and B2C use cases to increase from approximately 620 million in 2026 to 120 billion annually by 2031 – growth of more than 19,000% in five years.
Electronics, groceries, everyday goods and fashion are expected to be among the categories where AI agents could play a particularly significant role.
According to an estimate by the U.S. Department of Commerce, these categories account for 77% of Bulgarian eCommerce revenue. This suggests that some of the most widely used eCommerce segments could also be among those most affected by the development of agentic commerce.
When an AI agent makes the purchasing decision
Agentic commerce involves five key parties: the consumer, the AI agent acting on their behalf, the payment provider, the bank and the merchant.
This makes the questions surrounding agentic payments much broader than whether the technology can successfully complete a transaction without direct human involvement.
When an algorithm selects a product, compares offers and makes a purchasing decision, responsibility needs to be clearly defined. How is the consumer’s intent authenticated? What permissions and limits does the AI agent have? And what happens if it makes a mistake, completes an unwanted purchase or becomes the target of fraud?
The answers will influence both the security of agentic payments and the level of trust consumers are willing to place in them.
The shift also affects the wider payments ecosystem. Payment providers, banks, merchants and technology companies will need to define their roles and responsibilities in transactions where some decisions may be made autonomously by AI.
Another question is whether existing approaches to identification, authorisation, consumer protection and fraud prevention are sufficient for an environment in which a person is no longer directly involved in every transaction.
As AI agents become more autonomous, finding the right balance between human control and the speed and convenience the technology can provide will become increasingly important.
What else is on the DIGI PAY 2026 agenda?
Alongside agentic payments, the ninth edition of DIGI PAY will address digital identity and digital wallets in Bulgaria.
The programme will also explore the future of wealth management in the context of AI, globalisation and changing customer expectations. Noa Kreinman, Global Managing Director of Wealth Management at software group Temenos, will join the event for this discussion.
European payment sovereignty and market fragmentation will also be part of the agenda, with Astrid Cousin, Director for Horizontal Policies at the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Financial Stability, Financial Services and Capital Markets Union, and Ludovic Francesconi, Chief Strategy Officer and Board Member of the European Payments Initiative.
DIGI PAY 2026 will take place on 8 October at Inter Expo Center in Sofia, Bulgaria.
More information and the full programme are available at www.digipay.bg.