“Let AI choose and buy it for me”: Can consumers safely trust AI with payments?

An AI shopping assistant could check a user’s calendar, find a suitable showing of “Zootopia 2,” recommend a seat based on past viewing history, buy the ticket, and guide the user to the cinema. South Korea’s Financial Settlement and Clearing Institute presented the scenario as a glimpse of how agentic commerce could change everyday purchasing.

The technology is already entering early commercial use. Amazon’s Alexa for Shopping can automatically buy an item through a default payment method when its price reaches a user-set level. Its Buy for Me service can visit an outside brand’s online store and place an order and payment on the consumer’s behalf. Google has also introduced tools in the United States that let users find and purchase products through AI Mode in Search and the Gemini app, using a payment method registered with Google Pay.

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More time will be needed before we reach the stage of entrusting AI with purchase decisions and payments, because responsibility when AI malfunctions has not yet been settled.

South Korean services have not reached the same stage. Naver offers a beta shopping AI agent that searches, compares, and recommends products, but does not complete payment. KakaoPay has released development tools for preparing, approving, and canceling payments within AI services, though it has not launched a full service.

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If domestic responses are delayed, there is a risk that the core foundation of the agentic economy will be built around overseas platforms, reducing the role of Korea’s domestic payment infrastructure.

Stripe divides agentic commerce into five stages. The first three involve help with data entry, product searches, and comparisons. At the fourth stage, AI searches for and buys products within a user’s budget and conditions. At the fifth, it independently decides what the user needs, places the order, and reports the result.

The payment industry is working on technical standards to verify an agent’s identity and authority. Visa has introduced a protocol for that purpose and treats transactions performed by an agent as directly initiated by the cardholder. But the United States still lacks a legal framework for autonomous payments. A Korean card-industry official said more time would be needed before consumers can safely entrust AI with both purchase decisions and payment, because responsibility for malfunctions remains unsettled. A Financial Services Commission official said South Korea has begun reviewing domestic and overseas examples and gathering industry views.

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We have begun discussions, including reviewing domestic and international cases and listening to industry opinions, to introduce agent payments safely and efficiently.