The news: Klarna launched the Agentic Product Protocol, an open standard that makes products on the internet discoverable and understandable by AI agents, per a press release.

• The protocol gives AI agents access to more than 100 million products and 400 million prices standardized over 12 markets.
• Agents will be able to discover, recommend, and compare products across different merchants, platforms, and markets.
• Klarna merchants will be able to amplify their wares to AI agents immediately upon listing across Google Merchant, Shopify, Facebook Catalog, and CSV/JSON feed formats. 

This mirrors the Agent Payments Protocol that Google developed, which Klarna also uses.

Why this matters: By 2030, US B2C commerce could win up to $1 trillion in orchestrated revenues from agentic commerce, per a McKinsey report. 

For buy now, pay later (BNPL) providers, early integrations with agentic protocols could help them command a larger share of agent-driven ecommerce, especially from younger consumers: 61% of Gen Zers and 57% millennials report using an AI-powered tool to complete a purchase within the last year, per PayPal’s Holiday Shopping Survey conducted by Talker Research. 

AI industry moves: Both incumbents and fintechs have been preparing for the sea change in consumer shopping behaviors brought by genAI.

• Splitit debuted its Agentic Commerce Partner Program, attempting to get an early mover advantage as a smaller BNPL provider.
• Google and OpenAI have connected agentic checkout to their AI shopping assistants.
• Visa launched the Trusted Agent Protocol to defend its card rails dominance.
• Mastercard rolled out Agent Pay, which boasts integrations with Microsoft, IBM, and Checkout.com.
• And Stripe announced the Agentic Commerce Suite, enabling agentic checkout for its affiliated merchants.

Our take: With 42% of US consumers claiming that they would let an AI agent purchase on their behalf if it meant ensuring the lowest price, per a YouGov study, all payment providers need to meet consumer demand for AI-powered commerce that allows them to save time and money on shopping. 

However, to speed up adoption of agent-driven checkout, platforms need to ensure safety and privacy with AI agent transactions: 65.5% of US consumers still have misgivings about agent-led payments, per Omnisend. 

With these consumers likely skewing older, platforms need to have easily accessible materials to explain the security features underlying these tools and their efficacy for finding the best products at the best prices.