Ballerine has launched Agenticom.org, an open industry hub focused on trust and readiness gaps in agentic commerce.
The initiative draws on original research conducted by Ballerine, based on 47 interviews spanning card schemes, payment service providers, acquirers, merchants, and AI platforms, supplemented by data from Ballerine's merchant portfolio and published analysis from payment networks, analysts, and regulators.
Research points to structural readiness gap
The research underpinning the launch identifies a significant imbalance between the pace at which demand for agentic commerce is growing and the readiness of the supply side to meet it. According to Ballerine's findings, 73% of online merchants are not agent-ready, with many lacking structured data, verification signals, operational clarity, and the trust infrastructure that AI agents are expected to rely on when initiating or recommending transactions. The research also indicates that demand for agentic commerce is growing substantially faster than supply, and that AI agents are currently routing activity towards merchants whose reliability has not been adequately verified.
The company positions this mismatch as a point of accumulating risk for the broader ecosystem. As AI agents take a more direct role in transactions (moving beyond product discovery into payment initiation and merchant selection) questions of merchant readiness, compliance status, and operational risk become part of the decisioning process. Ballerine's research suggests these factors are not yet adequately reflected in how agentic systems operate, and that the scale of the gap is larger than previously published estimates.
Hub covers infrastructure, research, and ecosystem mapping
Agenticom.org is designed to serve founders, operators, payment providers, acquirers, risk leaders, researchers, and technology companies involved in AI-mediated commerce. The site aggregates research, market analysis, expert commentary, and interviews. A central feature is the Agentic Commerce Stack, described as an industry map tracking companies and technologies building infrastructure for autonomous commerce. The map covers agents, checkout protocols, payment authorisation protocols, payment processors, seller and sales platforms, buyer-side trust providers, and seller-side trust readiness providers.
Additional content areas on the platform include industry news and analysis covering AI-powered payments, autonomous transactions, risk, and regulation, expert commentary from payment providers, acquirers, and AI companies, research spotlights on liability gaps and technical standards, as well as profiles of companies building agentic commerce infrastructure.
The launch reflects a broader industry discussion around the governance and verification frameworks required as AI agents become transacting participants rather than passive assistants. Ballerine frames Agenticom.org as a shared reference point for identifying what infrastructure remains to be built as agentic commerce scales.
