December 10, 2025
Today's Briefing: December 10th
NewsAgents Take
Today’s stories show the agentic wave moving from concept to infrastructure. Banks are partnering with AI-native platforms, networks are explicitly repositioning around agents, and protocols are emerging as the next major competitive front.
The standout is Shopify. Their move into “agentic storefronts” signals that agentic commerce will be embedded at the retail layer, not just the fintech layer. Meanwhile, Visa and Fifth Third are openly designing products and strategies around agent-initiated transactions.
This is the clearest indication yet that the rails of commerce are being rewired for autonomous systems rather than human users.
1. Fifth Third and Brex Partner on Agentic Commercial Cards
What’s happening:
Fifth Third and Brex are launching “agentic commercial cards,” designed to support autonomous purchasing, automated reconciliation, and AI-driven spend governance.
Why it matters:
This is one of the earliest mainstream banking products built explicitly for agent-driven workflows rather than human cardholders. Enterprise procurement may become one of the first real-world agentic commerce success cases.
2. Visa CEO Places Agentic AI at the Center of Payments Strategy
What’s happening:
Visa’s CEO is now positioning agentic AI as the core of Visa’s future decisioning and transaction flow strategy.
Why it matters:
This is a top-level confirmation that Visa sees agentic commerce as the next structural shift in payments — on par with e-commerce and mobile. It also signals growing competitive tension with external agentic networks and protocols.
3. The Protocol Power Struggle Begins
What’s happening:
PYMNTS highlights the emerging protocol competition between AP2, ACP, MCP, and others to become the default routing layer for agent-initiated commerce.
Why it matters:
Whoever owns the protocol owns distribution. This is becoming a standards battle over authentication, data exchange, and execution for autonomous agents — with enormous implications for market power.
4. Shopify Unveils Agentic Storefronts in Winter ’26 Release
Link:
https://www.shopify.com/news/winter-26-edition-agentic-storefronts
What’s happening:
Shopify has introduced “agentic storefronts,” enabling agents to directly query, navigate, and transact with merchant catalogs.
Why it matters:
This could rapidly scale agentic commerce across hundreds of thousands of merchants. It connects buyer-side agents with merchant-side infrastructure, accelerating adoption of autonomous purchasing.
5. Bonus: OpenAI Commentary on Agentic Risk (Video)
Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGwKTSEjhxM
A broader overview of how agentic systems could reshape markets and why new governance layers will be required.
