Agentic Commerce Poised to Run on Crypto Rails, PayPal and Google Officials Reveal at Consensus Miami
Miami Beach, Fla. — May 10, 2026 — Experts from PayPal and Google Cloud highlighted at the recent Consensus Miami conference that the future of internet commerce, driven by autonomous AI agents, will predominantly operate on cryptocurrency payment systems. Traditional banking infrastructure, they argued, structurally excludes AI agents, making crypto rails the natural foundation for the emerging agentic commerce ecosystem.
Richard Widmann, Google Cloud’s global head of Web3 strategy, emphasized that current internet experiences are not designed with autonomous agents in mind. “An agent cannot get a bank account. It’s not hard, it just is impossible,” he said, referencing both technical and regulatory barriers to AI agents accessing conventional financial accounts. By contrast, he described cryptocurrency as “a fantastic machine readable interface for payments,” perfectly suited to autonomous commerce.
Addressing this technological gap, Google has developed and launched the Agentic Payments Protocol (AP2), an open standard created to facilitate payments in this new paradigm. AP2, which has been donated to the FIDO Foundation, already boasts over 120 partners, including PayPal, and is envisioned as a foundational protocol much like the internet-native x402 payment standard supported by the Linux Foundation. “Open dialogues and open standards are really the foundation you need to build on,” Widmann noted.
From PayPal’s perspective, agentic commerce represents the next evolutionary step beyond offline, online, and mobile commerce. May Zabaneh, senior vice president and general manager of crypto at PayPal, pointed to the company’s stablecoin, PYUSD, as a “very natural programmable layer for payments,” especially amid a globalizing economy transitioning toward AI-driven experiences and tokenized assets.
Zabaneh referenced a recent PayPal survey revealing that 95% of merchants now observe AI agent traffic on their websites, yet only 20% have adapted by creating machine-readable product catalogs. She remarked, “Merchants need to be ready for this next era,” emphasizing that this transition corresponds with historic shifts from physical stores to online platforms, necessitating new formats for product exposure optimized for AI agents.
The discussion also tackled the complexities of liability in agent-powered transactions. Zabaneh acknowledged that the industry must clarify accountability when an autonomous agent makes an erroneous purchase. Meanwhile, Widmann highlighted the critical role of multi-party custody in agent system design. Google has fortified its Cloud Key Management System (KMS) to support cryptocurrency custody, advocating for a model where an agent controls only a fragment of the cryptographic keys—ensuring it cannot independently move funds or take unilateral actions.
When asked about the biggest challenges ahead, Widmann indicated that integrating autonomous agents into existing capital markets, payments, and trading infrastructure remains an unresolved question. Zabaneh admitted that trust is a primary professional concern but expressed personal optimism, saying she “can’t wait for agentic to help make my life easier.”
The insights from PayPal and Google underscore the accelerating intersection of AI, crypto, and commerce, signaling a transformative era where autonomous agents transact seamlessly on blockchain-powered payment networks.
Background
The Consensus Miami conference is a leading industry event where innovators, developers, and executives gather to discuss the latest trends in blockchain and cryptocurrency technologies. This year’s focus on agentic commerce sheds light on how AI and crypto are converging to reshape digital economic activity.
About the Agentic Payments Protocol (AP2)
AP2 is an open, interoperable payment protocol designed specifically to support autonomous AI agents executing transactions. By enabling machine-readable payment and product data, AP2 aims to facilitate smooth coordination between merchants, consumers, and AI agents in a secure and standardized framework.
This article was reported by Jeffrey Albus and edited by Nikhilesh De for CoinDesk.