--- title: Agentic Commerce description: The acceptance layer for agent-driven purchases — complete a checkout at any merchant, integrated or not, with the cardholder's consent and credential. --- # Agentic Commerce Issuers and networks can now give an AI agent a payment credential of its own — a Visa Intelligent Commerce network token, a Mastercard Agent Pay token, a passkey-bound cryptogram scoped to a single mandate. Authorising the agent to pay is no longer the hard part. **Finding a merchant that will take the payment is.** **Agnic is the acceptance layer.** The **Agnic Checkout Engine** completes a merchant's existing checkout on the agent's behalf — the same checkout a person uses — so an agent's credential is accepted at a merchant that was never built to take one. One integration for the issuer; the whole merchant internet for the cardholder.
Agentic Commerce — the acceptance layer for agent-driven purchases. An agent (it has a payment credential, acts under a mandate, and needs a merchant that will accept it) connects through the Agnic acceptance layer, which works with the merchant checkout that already exists, handles both integrated and un-integrated merchants, and keeps one mandate and one audit trail. It routes to the two kinds of merchant: un-integrated (a normal web checkout, no merchant changes — Agnic reads it, completes it, learns it) and integrated (connected to Agnic, with a structured catalogue and checkout, faster and fully deterministic). On every order, four things stay true: user consent, one interface, the merchant stays merchant of record, and evidence after every order.
This documentation is open to everyone. Production checkout execution is available to approved partners — contact Agnic for access. The interface is the Agnic [MCP server](/docs/agnicpay-features/mcp-server) and REST API. --- ## Two kinds of merchant Every merchant an agent meets is in one of two states. Agnic handles both — through one interface, under one mandate, with one audit trail. No agent checkout — just an ordinary web checkout. The Agnic Checkout Engine reads it, completes it, and learns it. This is most of the internet. Start here. Connected to Agnic — a structured catalogue and a server-to-server checkout. Faster, richer, fully deterministic. | | Un-integrated | Integrated | |---|---|---| | **Merchant work** | None — its checkout is unchanged | Connects a catalogue + checkout endpoint | | **How Agnic orders** | Completes the live checkout | Server-to-server session | | **Coverage** | The long tail — most merchants | Merchants on the Agnic network | | **Fulfilment** | As the checkout offers | Structured options (pickup, delivery, fees) | Most of the value is the first column: the merchants that will never integrate. Completing *their* checkout — reliably, repeatably, at a success rate you can report — is the hard problem, and the one an issuer's credential runs into first. See [Un-integrated merchants](/docs/agentic-commerce/unintegrated-merchants). --- ## What funds the purchase Agnic is credential-agnostic. Today it completes checkouts with a **PCI-vaulted card**: the agent and the model operate on a non-sensitive alias, and the real number is substituted inside the vault as the request leaves — it never touches the agent, the model, or the page. The same engine is built to carry **issuer-provisioned agentic credentials** — including Visa Intelligent Commerce network tokens, minted from a mandate-bound intent — so the credential an issuer gives its agent is what completes the purchase at the merchant. Explore and Pay are the same either way. --- ## How an order works Two calls: **Explore**, read-only, which prices the order and returns a one-use confirmation token, then **Pay**, which executes only against that token and the user's explicit confirmation. >G: Explore (merchant, items, amount) G->>M: read the live checkout G-->>A: price, claims to share, reliability, token A->>U: confirm the order and the disclosure U-->>A: approve A->>G: Pay (token + approval) G->>M: complete checkout with vaulted card M-->>G: result G-->>A: terminal status + evidence `} /> Explore never charges; Pay charges exactly the amount its token was issued for. To see it end to end on a real checkout, read the [bakery walkthrough](/docs/agentic-commerce/unintegrated-merchants#a-complete-order-start-to-finish). --- ## Common questions **Who is the merchant of record?** The merchant. Every order is charged by the merchant through its own payment processor. Agnic never holds or moves funds. **Does the model ever see the card?** No. The agent and the model operate on a non-sensitive alias; the real number exists only inside a PCI-DSS-scoped vault, where it is substituted into the payment request in flight. **What stops a runaway agent?** The mandate. Spending limits and identity grants are enforced server-side on every order; anything outside them stops for an explicit passkey approval. **What does a merchant have to change?** Nothing. The Agnic Checkout Engine completes the merchant's existing checkout. Merchants that want a structured rail can [connect to the network](/docs/agentic-commerce/integrated-merchants). **What exists after an order?** A verifiable record: the user's instruction, their confirmation, the exact amount approved, the claims disclosed, and step-by-step evidence of the checkout itself. --- ## Next steps The Agnic Checkout Engine: the walkthrough, Explore and Pay, the security posture. The structured, server-to-server rail for merchants on the network. Connect an agent and call the checkout operations.