让自动化软件代表消费者向在线商家下单，这一想法令科技和金融行业的大部分人士兴奋不已。相关讨论始于2025年初，此后迅速升温，并催生了“智能体商业”（agentic commerce）这一术语。然而，几次现实检验也让这一理念受到质疑。例如，亚马逊 recently 以使用条款限制为由，屏蔽了 Meta 的 Muse 聊天机器人。
The thought of automated software making purchases on behalf of consumers from online merchants thrills much of the tech and financial industry. The chatter started in early 2025 and has surged since then, giving rise to the term "agentic commerce." A few reality checks have called the idea into question. For example, Amazon recently blocked Meta's Muse bot, citing terms of use restrictions.
此前，这家电商巨头还曾屏蔽 Perplexity 的 AI 机器人，并在诉讼久拖不决期间赢得了一项初步禁令，但该禁令后来被推翻。不过，即使亚马逊等大型平台尚未接受这样一种未来——其电商服务将化为自动购物助手的一次 API 调用，而后者会四处寻找最低价格——支付公司仍对自动化购物表示欢迎。万事达周三发布了一份报告，探讨要实现智能体商业的可行性需要具备哪些条件。
This was after the e-commerce giant had previously blocked Perplexity's AI bot, and even won a preliminary injunction that was later overturned as the litigation dragged on. But even if major platforms like Amazon haven't accepted that their e-commerce services dissolve into an API call for automated shopping assistants that seek out low prices, payment companies welcome automated shopping. Mastercard on Wednesday published a report exploring what needs to happen to make agentic commerce workable.
报告称：“AI 智能体正在学习代表消费者、企业和机器进行购物、支付和行动。ICSC 和麦肯锡预计，到2030年，智能体商业在美国消费零售领域的营收可能达到1万亿美元；高德纳预计，到2028年，AI 智能体将中介超过15万亿美元的 B2B 支出。”这里，“可能”这两个字承担了很大的分量。正如支付行业所观察到的， commerce 链条中的每一个参与者都必须接受智能体商业这一理念，否则它就无法成为现实。
"AI agents are learning to shop, pay, and act on behalf of consumers, businesses, and machines," the report says. "ICSC and McKinsey project that agentic commerce in US consumer retail could reach $1 trillion in revenue by 2030, and Gartner expects AI agents to intermediate more than $15 trillion in B2B spending by 2028." The word "could" is doing a lot of work here. As the payment biz observes, every player in the commerce chain needs to get onboard with the idea of agentic commerce or it won't happen.
周三在旧金山举行的 The AI Conference 上，Hedera AI Studio 产品经理 Lindsay Walker 表示，这一过程还需要一些时间。Walker 在演示中表示：“智能体商业尚未成为现实。外面有很多产品声称自己正在创建智能体钱包或智能体卡。但说到底，这些产品还不能实际使用，也尚未真正步入成熟阶段。”她预计五年内智能体商业将成为现实。但基于多项因素，这只“秃鹫”怀疑，消费者会有多大意愿交出钱包的控制权。
At The AI Conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, Lindsay Walker, product manager at Hedera AI Studio, said that will take some time. "Agentic commerce is not a reality yet," said Walker during her presentation. "There are a lot of products out there claiming that they're creating agent wallets or agent cards. But when it comes down to it, it's not functional yet and hasn't truly emerged." Within five years, she expects agentic commerce to be a real thing. But this vulture is skeptical that there will be much demand for surrendering the power of the purse, based on several factors.
首先，电商平台无需AI智能体就已提供自动重复购买功能。其次，低价商品如今在网络零售平台上本来就能轻点几下便轻松买到，AI智能体不太可能改善这一流程。消费者购买高价商品时，会谨慎权衡选择，而许多人都不愿或不应将这种周密考虑交给他人。第三，信任在商业交易中至关重要。各家AI公司已经证明，其模型并不可信，而且人们无法了解智能体将如何完成购买，也无法判断相关商家是否会左右价格或购买决定。
First, e-commerce sites already offer automated repeat purchasing, without AI agents. Second, low-cost items are already trivially easy to buy from online retailers with only a few clicks. An AI agent is unlikely to improve that process. When people purchase high-cost items, they take pains over their choices with the sort of close consideration many would be reluctant and/or remiss to delegate. Third, trust matters in commercial transactions. AI companies have shown that their models cannot be trusted and there's no transparency into how agents would make purchases, or whether the vendors involved influence prices or purchasing decisions.
美国议员目前已在审查利用AI算法进行个性化定价的做法，因此，进一步推动交易自动化可能会遭遇监管阻力（不过，在当前这个“自行监管”的政府治下或许未必如此）。阻力点在于，沃克对智能体商务作了宽泛定义：“它不只是购买的那一刻，还包括商品发现、议价、结算，以及购买后的流程和物流。发现并比较各种选项，与付款时刻同样重要，而事实上，后者是迄今为止人们唯一一直关注的部分。”
Personalized pricing via AI algorithms is already under scrutiny by US lawmakers, so further efforts to automate transactions may face regulatory friction (though perhaps not under the current regulate-yourself administration). Points of friction Walker defines agentic commerce broadly, as "more than just that moment of purchase. It includes discovery, it includes negotiation, it includes settlement, and it includes that post-purchase process and logistics. Discovering and comparing options is just as important as the payment moment, which is actually the only thing that people have been focusing on so far."
沃克表示，在这个连续过程中，智能体商务可以很简单，比如由AI协助挑选商品并完成购买流程。这是可行的。但当用户将决策权交给能够自行作出决定的AI智能体时，事情就会复杂起来。她说，目前的问题正出在这里。金钱太重要了，资金太重要了，价值太重要了。因此，必须设置确定性关卡，不能让概率模型绕过这些关卡。”
Within that continuum, Walker said, agentic commerce can be as simple as AI helping with product selection and the purchase process. That's viable. It gets more complicated when users delegate authority to an AI agent that makes decisions on its own. That, she said, is where things break down currently. Money is too important. Funds are too important. Value is too important. You need to have deterministic gates that can't be bypassed by a probabilistic model."
她表示：“我们目前构建电商体系的方式适用于人类，却不适用于AI。”要让AI交易具备可行性，她说，交易不能由概率模型执行。“金钱太重要了，”她说，“资金太重要了。
"The way that we build e-commerce right now works for humans, but it does not work for AI," she said. To make AI transactions viable, she said, transactions cannot be run by probabilistic models. "Money is too important," she said. "Funds are too important. Value is too important.
“价值至关重要；因此，我们必须使用那些无法被概率模型绕过的、具有确定性的机制来处理相关交易。这些机制不能被随意解释或滥用。”沃克解释说：“在商业领域，通常有一种叫做‘验证支付卡是否在场’的机制：如果商家不想为顾客声称自己并未进行的交易承担责任，就必须证明顾客确实使用了支付卡。然而，在使用人工智能代理的情况下，支付卡根本就不存在（因为人工智能代理本身并不需要使用实体支付卡）。为了解决这个难题，业界需要一种将个人身份与人工智能代理绑定在一起的机制。”
You need to have deterministic gates that can't be bypassed by a probabilistic model. It can't be left open to interpretation." Rather, people need a way to provide input in a deterministic way that signals intent to purchase. "Traditionally in commerce there's something called 'card present' where if a merchant doesn't want to be held liable for a purchase that a human claims they didn't make, they have to prove that the [payment] card is present," Walker explained. "Well, with an AI agent, cards are not present, ever." To solve this quandary, she contends, the industry needs a mechanism for tethering a person's identity to an agent.
她还指出，当前电子商务系统的设计存在一些根本性的功能缺陷。虽然市面上有一些被企业称为“智能钱包”或“智能支付卡”的产品，但这些产品实际上并无法正常使用。“这是我曾在网站上尝试使用的一种购物流程：系统给了我一张特定的虚拟卡或账户来完成购买，但这样做毫无意义——因为人工智能代理根本无法完成交易。”
There are also simple functional problems with how e-commerce is set up today. Walker said there are products out there that companies describe as agentic wallets or agentic cards. But they don't work. "This is an example checkout that I tried to do on the website," she recounted. "I was given a specific virtual card or account to make this purchase. However, there was no point in creating this because the AI agent couldn't make the purchase." The AI agent couldn't