Your Wallet Just Got A Brain

Shopping used to mean browsing. Then it meant clicking. Now, it might mean nothing more than typing one sentence and walking away.

e-commerce as we know it will soon disappear. The new rising king is 1-prompt-shopping, where AI agentsSoftware entities capable of performing tasks and executing transactions independently act on your desires, stablecoins settle the bill, and the interface disappears. Sounds efficient. But if your walletA tool for storing, sending, and receiving cryptocurrencies starts thinking for you, the next question is: who's really in control?

Note: This topic turned out to be bigger than expected. Too many moving parts — tech, trust, tokens, and what happens when agents start making decisions for you. So I've split it into two issues. This one covers the shift in how we buy. The next will cover what happens when your wallet thinks too much.

The Death of the Checkout

You want to buy running shoes. In the old world, you open a browser. Scroll for hours. Compare tabs. Try to spot fake reviews. Double-check delivery terms. Ask yourself how these Nike Air Force 1s can vary so much in price. Eventually, you settle for something "good enough", then wait.

In the new world?

You take a photo of your old running shoe (or any item). You upload it to your AIAI systems that learn patterns from data without explicit programming agent with a prompt like:

"Find me the HOKA Clifton 10 Wide in all black, under $200. Prioritize lowest price and fastest delivery. If not available, find a comparable running shoe with similar performance, comfort, and quality — same price cap, fastest shipping. USD only. US size 11, wide fit only."

That's it. The agent uses AIAI systems that learn patterns from data without explicit programming visual recognition to ID the model (e.g. HOKA Clifton 10), it searches for that or similar models, compares price, availability, shipping time, and executes the purchase via USDCA fully-reserved stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the US Dollar, issued by Circle and backed by regulated financial institutions or your walletA tool for storing, sending, and receiving cryptocurrencies rules. The item ships. No cart. No checkout. No confirmation page. That's not a more efficient process. That's a removed one. A protocol. You no longer browse. You just intend, request, and the system executes.

This is what intent-based commerce means.

Why This Is Happening Now?

Three major shifts are colliding for a perfect storm:

1. AI Agents

MarTech & IA Insights and other custom GPTs can now compare products, generate recommendations, find you discount coupons for the sites you want to buy from, trigger bookings, and finalize purchases. With memory and preferences built-in, they're no longer assistants. They're agents. This is not a trivial distinction.

2. Tokenized Payments

Stablecoins like USDCA fully-reserved stablecoin pegged 1:1 to the US Dollar, issued by Circle and backed by regulated financial institutions or EUROC bypass traditional banks entirely. They move faster, cost less, and require no card networks. When paired with smart contractSelf-executing code on a blockchain that automates transactions wallets, they unlock programmable spending with zero intermediaries.

3. Embedded Infrastructure

Telegram Messenger and TON are embedding native tokenA digital asset built on an existing blockchain, often representing utility or value payments in messages. Visa and Mastercard are rolling out agent-based tools like Visa Intelligent Commerce and Mastercard Agent Pay, where AI agentsSoftware entities capable of performing tasks and executing transactions independently can be authorized to act within set rules.

The result?

Interface → Intent Execution

Wallets aren't passive. They're smart, programmable, and often autonomous. A personal buyer/CFO in your pocket, whether you're ready for one or not.

It's not streamlining e-commerce. It's taking it apart. No forms. No passwords. No checkout. No banners. No "limited time" upsells. No abandoned carts.

Prompt → Agent → Wallet → Chain.

That's the new pipeline. Which raises the real shift: we will stop building for human interaction, and started building for agentic commerce, machines transacting on behalf of humans. On both sides. When that becomes normal, everything changes:

• Browsing dies.
• Funnels fail.
• Loyalty breaks.

Because you're not convincing a human anymore. You're convincing an agent, one that doesn't care about brand stories, just parameters. I might suggest that advertising and marketing will have to work much harder, to get us searching for a specific product and not send our agent to fulfill a need.

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"We will stop building for human interaction, and start building for agentic commerce — machines transacting on behalf of humans."

This might end brands as we know it, not in the near future, but as a result. If we revert back to functionality and value-for-money, which are just down the agent's alley if we program it right, things will become very interesting.

Visa, Mastercard, and the New Payment OS

Visa isn't watching this happen. It's leading the charge. Their Intelligent Commerce platform opens up Visa's infra to AI agentsSoftware entities capable of performing tasks and executing transactions independently, letting them select, authorize, and pay based on pre-approved logic. Tokenized credentials. Spend limits. Developer APIsConnective tissue linking banks, fintechs, AI systems. No passwords. No static forms.

Mastercard's Agent Pay does the same: registered AI agentsSoftware entities capable of performing tasks and executing transactions independently can be approved to act on behalf of users using secure, rule-based logic.

Backers include OpenAI, Microsoft, IBM, Stripe, Anthropic. This isn't a pilot. It's a new operating system for delegated intent.

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"The pitch: you stay in control. The agent acts on your terms. But here's the unresolved bit: what happens when it doesn't?"

Right now, it's still clunky. You've got base agents like ChatGPT or Claude, and if you're technical enough, you can wrap them into custom buyers, advisors, or bots that plug into Stripe, Shopify, or your walletA tool for storing, sending, and receiving cryptocurrencies. But that's not scalable. And not for most of us. Most people aren't there yet, but developers are already building agents like this behind the scenes.

We want great performance with ease of use. We want "Swipe to the right" to confirm. What's coming in my view is one of two paths, or both. Either you bring your own agent, trained on your preferences, purchase history, loyalty programs, and spending caps. Or you use Agent-as-a-Service (AaaS), prebuilt assistants embedded into apps like Telegram or Shopify, optimized to get you the best price or fastest shipping. One is personal, the other is productized. Both are coming faster than most people think.

Next Up

We used to worry about hackers. Now we have to worry about our own software. Because the next time money leaves your walletA tool for storing, sending, and receiving cryptocurrencies, you might not be the one who sent it. Welcome to agent commerce: Where AIAI systems that learn patterns from data without explicit programming doesn't just recommend, it executes.