AI Agents Start Shopping and Payments Firms Adapt

This is What's Next in Payments, a PYMNTS Podcast. Forward-looking insights from industry leaders on the trends in technologies reshaping payments and fintech. In this episode, PYMNTS Senior Reporter Austin Prey sits down with Mladen Vladic, Head of Product Payment Networks at FIS, to discuss why future-ready payments infrastructure is important as AI agents begin to search, negotiate, and transact. I'm Austin Prey, Senior Reporter here at PYMNTS.

Joining me today on PYMNTS TV is Mladen Vladic, the head of product payment networks at FIS. Austin, thank you for having me. I look forward to our discussion today. Yeah, and it's a great discussion.

We're here for the What's Next in Payment Series, uh, you know, the February edition, which is for Word of the Year. Uh and so, you know, we're for this series, we're asking senior executives across the industry uh to name their word of the year for 2026 uh with two kind of key exclusions, no AI uh and no crypto. Uh, and to explain, you know, why this word captures the pressures and priorities, uh, you know, reshaping commerce for the year ahead. Uh and so and Latin, kind of you know, diving right into that, you know, what's your word?

Kind of what do you think is the single business, you know, constraint word opportunity that you know will shape your 2026 uh more than any other? Uh I like your approach, how you excluded of what cannot be included, but uh with that guidance, uh I'm going to opt for Agenti Commerce as my word for 2026. And you know, I will give you a little bit of how we think about this or why I chose Agen eCommerce as a topic, as a word for for this year. Um, let's start with the consensus that is out there in the marketplace, you know, among analysts and consultants and all of the relevant parties that you know that AgentiCommerce could generate as much as 1 trillion in uh uh orchestrated US retail revenue by 2030.

And let's just keep in mind that that is just four short years away. So to me, this is a tremendous, tremendous um opportunity, right? And the topic that we should be discussing and we are discussing as the industry. Uh, and so I will provide just a little bit of perspective how we think about that or why we are as excited about the agent e-commerce in general.

The first one is that AI actually effectively functions as a personal digital agent uh that can source and negotiate and complete purchases using pre-approved or approved payment methods on behalf of the customer. Right now, AI-initiated transactions are executed within the existing authorization, authentication, and then dispute frameworks. And so, as we think about the financial services, financial services are still integral to the Agentic Commerce, you know, value prop because they provide infrastructure, security protocols, and payment systems that allow FI uh AI agents to uh transact safely and seamlessly.

And all of that being said, we believe that this is truly a transformational point, inflection point in the industry that is going to have far-reaching implications of how the commerce is conducted, not only in this country, but globally. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's a great uh, it's a great overview. Um, and you know, it's you're right, just kind of thinking about kind of all the plumbing that you know needs to happen in the background for this kind of magic moment uh for the for the customer.

Kind of, you know, where do you think customers will notice change first kind of as a Gentec you know matures? Uh and what, you know, kind of where's the onus on uh you know on companies like FIS uh to kind of you know fix, improve, and you know, stand up kind of you know that that gold standard uh you know you know best in breed kind of a Gentec experience? So let me take this in uh let me take this in order. Let me talk about first expectations of companies like FIS that are providing, if you will, infrastructure to enable this type of experience for customers on behalf of our clients in a B2B2C model.

And and then a really good question about like where and when customers are going to notice this first. So let's talk about the expectation. I think that the expectation of the overall uh, let's say, US payments industry, right, including all of the uh entities to the ecosystem that exists today, is really to continue to deliver seamless and frictionless experience for the customer. So I think about this, you know, as an extension of everything that we as industry have been doing for a number of years in terms of removing the friction and making that experience.

And remember, number of clicks and you know, the checkout and all of those things that mattered, right, for so many years. I think about this truly as an extension of that journey and that pressure that all of the entities are in the ecosystem, you know, kind of are solutioning for a very long time. And so to me, this is nothing more than extension of the expectation to deliver the greatest value to the customer and make that experience as seamless as and as frictionless as possible.

I do, I do believe that this is truly a generational uh opportunity, if you will, for everybody that is included, uh, and that is part of that uh transaction experience today. Uh, that, and I alluded to this before, that is going to have far-reaching implications on the ecosystem in terms of you know, opportunity to move up market, and then for some entities that are not ready or willing to embrace the new way of you know servicing customer, we are going to see some brands that are going to lose, you know, kind of the market share that they had maybe for many, many decades.

So that's the first part of the answer. The second one is even more relevant, and that is let's talk about the customer. So uh, you know, one of the very, very simple answer is the fact when you have the largest retailer in the world, Walmart, announcing at the recent uh industry conference in mid-January that they're partnering with Gemini, Google app, that's going to allow for Walmart purchases to be made through their app and through their checkout experience. I think that's a tremendous industry development.

And this is not the only one. There's a there's a press release and announcement between or partnership between Target and OpenAI. And so to me, this is not if this is just a matter of time before customers start experiencing something like this with such a large brain, like two that I mentioned. And so to me, that is then becoming a catalyst for all other retailers and stakeholders to accelerate their roadmaps to start delivering the same or similar type of checkout experience for customers.

Yeah, I mean, it's a uh going back to those kind of two big pieces of news, you know, it's a great point. Like that's big news. The fact that you know that Walmart is uh you know agreeing to kind of uh the Gentic retail protocol is a non-insignificant uh kind of you know moment in time, so to speak. And and so many times, and so many times in the industry, right, we we witnessed some type of smaller disruptor that brings something new to the market.

And then it takes time until you know larger entities adopt that and and and kind of scale that, if you will. And I think that we are here seeing something a little bit different, where you have largest brands in the marketplace that are announcing that almost first. And obviously, there are other announcements that are taking place concurrently, but there's no, you know, the scale based on everything that we are witnessing, I would argue that the scale is going to happen really rapidly and really fast, which is going to make this deployment, in my opinion, so much more relevant once again, in terms of what it matters to the customer and then it what it matters to everybody else that is included in this ecosystem.

Yeah, and it's really well said. Uh, you know, kind of I guess digging into that kind of fact that it made the change might just kind of happen, you know, suddenly. It might happen all at once. Um, what are some risks around that that you know might keep you up at night, uh, so to speak, colloquially?

Um, and you know, kind of what are some risks that you see as maybe even necessary for kind of the the growth and adoption um of a genetic commerce? I do believe that the way that the first um the first experiences are going to be delivered are going to be the key in terms of the um uh the pace at which this is going to be deployed. So if the first you know, a couple of use cases are not ideal in terms of the customer experience, customer, you know, it's all about first impression, right?

So if the customer's first interaction with this new experience is not ideal, they may decide not to adopt that rapidly. So I do believe that that's a really big kind of milestone that needs to take place. I would argue, given the announcement for, you know, from brands of the magnitude that we are learning about is going to validate that they're going to ensure that that experience is really frictionless without bugs and everything works just as designed as we like to say. And then the secondary piece is you know what keeps us at night.

I think that the speed at which, you know, the uh some of these changes are taking place is what's making all of the participants in participants in the ecosystem to really focus hard to accelerate delivery on their roadmaps, because the time to act is really now. And and when customers start experiencing this in the industry, there's not going to be three to six to nine to twelve months kind of lag of time for the rest of the marketplace to you know kind of deliver on that expectation.

I think that the expectation is going to be as quickly as possible with the customer experience that matters. So I would say it's not unique to FIS, to our brand. I think it's unique to the marketplace, and that is how do we deliver on the roadmap expectations and deliver on them timely. Yeah, I mean, there's there's never been more you can do with payments uh, you know, kind of than right now uh in this moment.

And I want to go back to something you mentioned earlier, kind of about you know, how agenda commerce is kind of the natural progression of taking friction out of kind of you know, you know, commerce occasion. Um it's because it's a great point that you know this is not you know an isolated moment, it's part of the kind of you know trajectory and history uh um of payments innovation. And so kind of you know each successive step in innovation kind of creates new table stakes um, you know, for for the consumer experience.

Kind of what do you see becoming table stakes uh you know this year? I will I will use this opportunity to make a connection to the other product idea that FIS has been working on uh since late last year, and that is the product concept called Smart Basket. And Smart Basket is meant to unify or is you know a product solution that is unifying the network-like uh assets of FIS to deliver better experience for customers by uh by uh focusing on the least cost routing from the card perspective, on a restricted spend or basket level intelligence, skew level visibility in transaction.

And then finally, uh real-time paved points loyalty network. And so we see a tremendous opportunity to combine all of those assets to bring even better, more frictionless, and more valuable experience for the customer on behalf of our clients and anybody who is included in this ecosystem. And then I see Agentic Commerce as a natural extension of the ecosystem that we are building with the smart basket. So this is these are really exciting times in terms of what we see as an opportunity out there in the marketplace, and all of that is centered around our number one objective, and that is always start and lead with the customer's perspective.

And if we deliver better experience for the customer at the moment when they are making the purchase, the better off everybody in the ecosystem is going to be in terms of incremental sales, more food traffic, and higher transaction amounts, you know, for every purchase. So we are very excited about the smart basket and agenda commerce in general. Yeah, I mean, there are some it's uh there's it's some exciting table stakes, you know, when kind of that's the technology that is um you know kind of creating this new foundation.

And and we've you know, the answer to my next question has kind of been threaded, uh, I guess, you know, throughout our conversation. Um, but if you had to define success, you know, 2027 starts, it's the end of 2026, kind of looking back on the year ahead, uh, if that makes paradoxically, you know, what would be your one measurable kind of you know success metric? I think this is a great opportunity to maybe maybe end the conversation kind of where we started. So if you think about like one trillion, you know, in in predicted, you know, sales uh volume by 2030.

And if we think about that, we are already in 2026, I would say that if we deliver 10% growth or 10% of the volume delivered through Argent e-commerce or smart basket, you know, channel for our clients by the end of this year, I would argue we're on the right path to deliver or to contribute to the expectation that the industry has of the Agenti Commerce as we get closer to 2030. Yeah, that's really well said. Uh, and it's a great note to end on. Um, I'm ladden, thank you so much for your time today.

Austin, I truly appreciate it. Thank you for the opportunity. That's it for this episode of the PYMNTS Podcast, the thinking behind the doing. Conversations with the leaders transforming payments, commerce, and the digital economy.

Be sure to follow us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. You can also catch every episode PYMNTS.com/podcasts . Thanks for listening.