The Paypers recently held an interview with Jill Willard, Chief Technology Officer at IXOPAY, about the main trends that are shaping merchant strategies in 2026, emphasising on the heavy adoption of AI tools to optimise and redefine how payments are initiated and processed.
Why is payment performance becoming increasingly important for merchants?
Payment performance has always mattered, but in today’s environment, it has become business-critical. Margins are tighter, competition is global, and customers expect seamless checkout experiences. A failed transaction isn’t just a lost sale – it often means a lost customer.
Payment performance is no longer a back-office concern; it’s a frontline growth driver. Every failed authorisation or clunky checkout flow risks not only lost revenue but also diminished brand trust. This becomes even more critical in the era of agentic commerce, where AI agents shop and transact on behalf of consumers. Payment failures don’t just hurt revenue today; they reroute tomorrow’s traffic. If a transaction fails, agents won’t retry; they’ll simply move on to the next available merchant.
How do you see AI being used across the payment stack in 2026?
By 2026, AI won’t simply be an optimisation layer; it will redefine how payments are initiated and processed through agentic commerce. Early moves from Visa, Mastercard, and initiatives like Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) are already laying the groundwork for shared protocols that enable agent-led payments. In this world, AI agents initiate transactions, delegate authorisation, and select payment credentials without human intervention at checkout.
AI will also democratise insights. Teams won’t need a data science background to ask complex questions about their payments. With tools like IXOPAY’s AI-based data insights, they can ask natural-language questions like: ‘Why are my approval rates lower in Brazil this week?’ and receive precise, actionable answers.
That’s where AI will transform payments: not just in automation, but in accessibility and intelligence. We’re moving from card-present and ecommerce to a third channel altogether: agentic commerce. The UI disappears; the agent emerges.
Which payment metrics will matter most to merchants in 2026?
Merchants will measure success less by volume and more by the signals that determine agent trust. The speed of checkout will matter less because there’s no human waiting. What matters most is simple:
- The payment types the agent wants to use are available.
- Authorisation rates are consistently high.
- Access to the correct digital wallet is seamless.
Supporting metrics will still play a role, including:
- Decline reasons (and whether they’re recoverable);
- Routing performance across acquirers and geographies;
- Settlement speed, to maintain liquidity;
- Token lifecycle success rates, as network tokens take over from PANs.
In other words, success will come down to offering the right payment options, securing the approval, and ensuring the agent can transact without friction.
What types of capabilities do merchants typically build versus buy?
Merchants typically build what differentiates their brand: custom checkout flows, loyalty experiences, or agent-facing storefront logic. However, they buy what requires global scale, compliance, and continuous innovation: payment orchestration, token lifecycle management, fraud prevention, and now agentic-ready APIs.
The reality is that merchants want to keep what’s working and extend it with the right partners. IXOPAY’s role is to give them the freedom to add new PSPs or solutions with limited development time, so they can invest in their core product. That’s why flexibility and connectivity are central: merchants can innovate on top of their stack while relying on IXOPAY to provide the heavy lifting underneath.
Why can’t merchants rely on just building or buying anymore, and how does a hybrid strategy help merchants scale faster?
Purely building is too slow. Purely buying is too rigid. The future of payments demands both flexibility and scale, and merchants know it. Global expansion is hard enough without having to constantly rebuild the stack. A hybrid strategy lets merchants keep what they’ve built, buy what they need, and plug into new solutions as the market evolves.
With IXOPAY, merchants don’t have to choose. They can keep existing integrations and add new capabilities as their needs grow, whether that’s new connectivity, fraud tools, wallets, or agentic commerce APIs. It’s about resilience and adaptability: scaling faster without the cost and disruption of constant rebuilds.
The next five years will reshape payments more than the last twenty. The winners will be merchants who embrace flexibility, data-driven intelligence, and agentic commerce – not by tearing down what they’ve built, but by layering on the right tools to scale globally and stay ahead of change.
This editorial piece was first published in The Paypers' Global Ecommerce Report 2025, which provides a complete overview of key trends and strategies to help businesses worldwide succeed. Download your free copy today to explore in-depth insights on global ecommerce trends, the latest innovations in payment solutions, and strategies to stay ahead in a competitive market.
About the author
Jill Willard is the Chief Technology Officer at IXOPAY, bringing over 20 years of experience in leading global payment platforms. With her extensive background, she drives innovation and strengthens IXOPAY’s advanced Payment Orchestration Platform, ensuring it meets the growing scalability, security, and reliability needs of enterprise clients.
About IXOPAY
IXOPAY is the enterprise-grade global payment orchestration platform built for the era of agentic commerce, equipping merchants and businesses with AI-driven intelligence, advanced tokenization, and the tools to power every step of their payments journey. From routing and compliance to customized modules and full-scale orchestration, IXOPAY delivers the infrastructure for faster integrations, higher approval rates, and seamless global expansion. Learn more at www.ixopay.com.
