Summary: Agentic commerce is arriving fast. As AI agents start comparing options, managingsubscriptions, and executing purchases without human clicks, payments must evolve from a visible checkout step into an invisible, programmable, and verifiable layer. This article outlines WooshPay’s approach: agent identity (KYA), programmable credentials, verifiable authentication, and AI-native orchestration.
The Shift: From Clicks to Autonomous Payments
For years, online commerce has revolved around familiar actions: browse, click “buy,” confirm payment. That pattern assumes a person is present at every step. Agentic commerce breaks that assumption. Software agents now evaluate choices, negotiate terms, and complete transactions on behalf of people and businesses—often in the background.
To make this safe, reliable, and scalable, payments must become API-native, policy-driven. In other words, we need a payment infrastructure designed for AI agents.
What Is Agentic Commerce?
Agentic commerce is a mode of digital trade where software agents initiate and complete transactions with delegated authority. The agent acts on behalf of a user or an organization within a clearly defined scope (e.g., “renew subscriptions up to $20,” “purchase approved tools,” “keep price under threshold X”).
This model introduces new demands on the payment stack:
•Recognize which agent is acting and who delegated the authority.
•Enforce least-privilege access to funds and sensitive data.
•Authenticate actions with cryptographic proofs rather than reusable secrets.
•Orchestrate payments programmatically, based on policy and real-time outcomes.
•Maintain an explainable audit trail that satisfies merchants, issuers, and regulators.
Why Legacy Payments Fall Short for AI Agents
•Human-centric assumptions: Traditional flows expect UI clicks, OTP entries, and manualreviews. Agents require machine-first, API-callable flows.
•Opaque identity: Existing systems rarely express the distinction between the end user and the software agent acting for them.
•Static credentials: Long-lived secrets and stored PANs increase risk; agents need ephemeral,scoped, revocable credentials.
•Fragmented orchestration: Channel performance varies; agents need policy-driven routing,retries, and fallbacks, not ad-hoc integrations.
•Limited auditability: Proving intent, scope, and provenance is hard without a cryptographically linked record of the agent’s actions.
Design Principles for AI-Native Payments
1. Clear Agent Identity: Always distinguish agent, principal, and merchant within the transaction model.
2. Least-Privilege Access: Grant only the permissions needed, only for as long as needed.
3. Verifiable Authentication: Prefer cryptographic signatures and attestations over passwords or shared secrets.
4. Programmable Orchestration: Make routing and risk policies explicit, testable, and event-driven.
5. Transparent Consent & Audit: Capture the who/what/why/when of every action and link it cryptographically.
WooshPay: The Payment Network for Agents
WooshPay is building next-generation payment infrastructure that makes agent-to-merchant transactions reliable, intelligent, and invisible. Our stack is organized around four core capabilities.
1. KYA: Know Your Agent (Agent Identity)
KYA extends identity beyond people and businesses to include software agents. It encodes:
-Provenance: who built and operates the agent
-Delegation: which principal the agent represents and the scope granted
-Attestations: verifiable claims (keys, device posture, model signature, environment)
With KYA, merchants and financial institutions can see, verify, and trust the agent behind each payment.
2. Programmable Credentials
Agents should not hold human PANs or long-lived secrets. WooshPay issues dynamic, policy-bound credentials:
•Network tokens / virtual instruments with spend caps and short TTLs
•Wallet-based credentials scoped to specific merchants or categories
•Policy-aware credentials that enforce amount ceilings, time windows, and MCC allow/deny lists
These credentials are ephemeral, least-privilege, and instantly revocable, reducing blast radius and simplifying compliance.
3. Verifiable Authentication
WooshPay replaces reusable secrets with cryptographic proofs and verifiable credentials:
-Phishing-resistant: no stored secret to steal or replay
-Non-repudiation: signed requests link actions to a specific agent and delegation
-Fine-grained revocation: rotate at the credential, key, or scope level without breaking the entire integration
4. Orchestration for Autonomy
Agents operate continuously and at scale. WooshPay provides an event-driven orchestration layer that adapts in real time:
-Smart routing: select the path with the best predicted success and cost
-Policy engine: enforce SCA triggers, spend limits, and velocity rules consistently
-Resilience: handle retries, failovers, idempotency, and recovery automatically
-Telemetry: stream outcomes and signals for analytics, monitoring, and learning loops
Developer Experience: API-First for Agents
WooshPay delivers a developer experience tailored to agent runtimes:
•Unified API for payments, credentials, identity, and policy management
•Webhooks & events to drive next-action logic and orchestration decisions
•Sandbox & test mode to simulate agent behaviors and spending policies
•SDKs & quickstarts for server, edge, and agent environments
Example (conceptual): an agent requests a scoped, single-use credential and submits a signed payment call under that scope—no PAN handling, no long-lived keys.
結論
Agentic commerce turns payments from a user-visible step into invisible infrastructure. To support autonomous, policy-bound, and verifiable transactions, the payment stack must be rebuilt around agent identity, programmable credentials, verifiable authentication, and orchestration.
WooshPay’s mission is to provide that foundation—making AI agent payments reliable, intelligent, and invisible.