Riverty and Adyen's consumer survey and a new Fintech 2040 paper have examined how AI agents are transforming digital commerce.
A new paper from the Fintech 2040 series has examined how AI agents are evolving from passive shopping assistants into autonomous actors capable of executing purchases independently, with implications for how businesses compete in digital commerce and how consumers retain control over AI-driven transactions.
The paper, titled Agentic Commerce: China's Lead, Europe's Choice, argues that competitive advantage in ecommerce is shifting away from traditional metrics such as clicks, rankings, and conversions, and towards what the paper calls a 'trust and protocol layer' — encompassing machine-readability, payment authority, trusted execution, and interoperability between AI systems.
China's integrated ecosystems as an early reference point
The paper points to China as an existing model of how agentic commerce can function at scale. Ecosystems such as Alibaba's Qwen and ByteDance's Douyin are cited as examples of AI agents combining commerce, payments, recommendation systems, and digital services within tightly integrated consumer environments. These platforms illustrate how intent, payments, and execution can converge when operating within connected digital infrastructure.
However, the paper does not present China's approach as a template for European markets. Instead, it frames the contrast as a strategic choice for Europe: rather than replicating highly integrated platform models from China or the US, European businesses and policymakers could pursue an alternative model grounded in interoperability, transparent permissions, trusted payments, and consumer accountability.
Consumer trust remains a limiting factor
Furthermore, a representative consumer survey conducted by Riverty and Adyen provides empirical grounding for the paper's central argument. The survey found that 93% of respondents want the ability to review or stop AI purchasing decisions at any time. Most participants indicated they would only grant AI agents limited spending authority and expect full transparency around how decisions are made.
These findings position consumer trust not as a secondary concern, but as a defining constraint on how agentic commerce can develop in practice. With this in mind, the paper concludes that the trajectory of AI-driven commerce will be shaped as much by trust architecture as by underlying technology.
Implications for European commerce and payments
For payments and commerce businesses operating in Europe, the paper's framing carries several practical implications. The shift toward AI-mediated transactions raises questions about how products and services are discovered, evaluated, and ultimately selected when a human is no longer directly navigating the process. In addition, visibility within AI systems, rather than in search results or on-platform rankings, becomes a new axis of competition.
At the same time, the regulatory and cultural context in Europe (including existing frameworks around data protection and consumer rights) may offer a foundation for building agentic commerce models that differ structurally from those emerging in other regions.
The paper is part of Riverty's ongoing Fintech 2040 series, which examines long-term structural shifts in financial services, digital commerce, and consumer behaviour.
