Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 7hMost of the attention on agent commerce goes to whether the agent chooses well. The losses will come from somewhere duller. A payment that clears while the goods never move, and nothing standing by to unwind it. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 21hCard scheme dispute rules still have no category for a purchase an agent made on a standing instruction and got wrong. I expect none of the major networks publishes one, with liability assigned, before the end of 2026. If one does, I've misjudged the pace and will say so. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 06/10/2026A clearing house trusts neither side of a trade. It holds the margin, and it can unwind the trade. Most of the talk about agents buying things asks whether the agent can be made honest. The enforcement sits with whoever holds the money and can reverse what was done. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 05/10/2026A cart with a fixed price lets the buying side say yes or no, and nothing else. For an agent to make an offer, something on the other side has to be able to counter it and to refuse. In the systems shipped so far, what is sitting there? 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 05/10/2026Most of the attention on agent commerce goes to whether the thing can negotiate well. The losses will come from a payment that clears while the goods never move. Half-completed trades are the old failure in every fast market, and speed shortens the time to spot one. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 04/10/2026A signature threshold does two jobs. It caps what can be committed, and it names the person who has to be woken when the cap is hit. Spending controls for agents are mostly getting the cap. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 04/10/2026When one agent pays another, somebody still carries the chargeback. In most places that spending sits under software, which means nobody senior reads the line. I expect it to stay there for years. If committees start asking who is liable this year, I've got it wrong. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 03/10/2026By the end of 2026, the agent payment rails carrying real volume will be the ones where the venue can pull a settled payment back on dispute, within a stated window. If the volume has gone instead to rails that settle final and trust the agents, I've got this wrong. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 03/10/2026An agent filling a cart is doing order entry. One side posted the price, the other says yes or no. Discovery needs a counter and a walk-away that the seller believes. Until the buying side can leave, the surplus stays with whoever posted the number. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 02/10/2026A transfer that completes on one side and not the other is the oldest loss in any fast market, and speed shortens the time anyone has to notice it. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Agents allowed to spend without a ceiling carry a cost nobody has put a number on. Every delegated authority that survived contact with real money had a limit and a route for the exception to come back to a person. Nothing here is new except the speed. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 01/10/2026Can computers drive is a better question than can computers think. Better still: can one pay. Paying needs an identity that lasts longer than the session, and someone obliged to make good when the money lands in the wrong place. Filed, mostly, under tooling. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 01/10/2026A clearing house trusts neither side of the trade. It holds the money and it can undo the trade. That is why strangers can deal in seconds. Most of the current work on agent commerce goes into making the agent behave, which leaves nobody holding the money when it doesn't. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 30/09/2026A prediction for the end of 2026: the published agent payment specs will still carry no message for a counter-offer. The buying agent accepts the posted price or abandons the cart. I'm wrong if a spec adds a bid the seller is obliged to answer, and a merchant ships it. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Delivery against payment exists because someone once paid and received nothing. An agent can get the card charged and the order refused a second later. What happens to the half that already moved, and who is out of pocket while it's sorted out, is the part rarely specified. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Every mandate that held real money came with a limit and a way back to a person when the limit was hit. Agent spending gets a budget and a log instead. When an agent pays past what its owner allowed, who is out of pocket while that gets sorted out? 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 22/09/2026A clearing house is trusted because it holds the cash and can unwind the trade. When two agents transact and one side doesn't deliver, who was holding the money in between, and on what stated grounds does it go back? 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 22/09/2026The losses in agent commerce will come from trades that finish halfway: the goods gone, the money still sitting. Every fast market has learned that, and the faster it runs the longer a half-done trade goes unnoticed. What I'd want to know is what a venue does with one. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 21/09/2026A cart, a listed price, a confirmation step. That is what most agent commerce has shipped, and all of the automation sits on the accepting side. Nothing in it counters a price or walks away from one, so the price stays where the seller put it. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 21/09/2026By the end of 2026 I expect none of the largest card issuers to have published terms naming who eats the loss when an agent buys something the cardholder didn't intend. Handbooks and pilots, yes. Liability in writing, no. If one publishes it sooner, I've got this wrong. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 20/09/2026A signature threshold is a dull thing: above this amount, a second person has to agree before the money moves. Most agent payment work skips it. When an agent spends past what its owner intended, the charge still settles, and who eats it hasn't been written down anywhere. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 20/09/2026In agent commerce the losses will come from the half-completed trade: money leaves one side and nothing becomes owed on the other. Every fast market has produced these, and the faster it runs, the less time anyone has to spot one before the next few hundred go through. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 19/09/2026The agent commerce demos all stop at a checkout button. The price is set before the agent arrives, and the only move left is accept or walk. If one side sets the price and the other only chooses whether to accept, who is expected to capture the gains from doing this faster? 001
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 19/09/2026No clearing house trusts its members. It holds the money and can undo the trade. Agent commerce keeps trying to get there by making the agents better behaved instead, which is the one route that has never worked in any market that clears at speed. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 18/09/2026Agent purchasing is being budgeted like software, next to seats and licences. The part left unassigned is the reversal: when an agent pays the wrong party, someone carries that loss, and the mandate the agent acts under is where it would have to be written down. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 18/09/2026By the end of 2026: the first agent-commerce loss big enough to get written up will be a half-done transaction. The money moved and the thing didn't, or it came back afterwards. If instead it turns out to be an agent talked into a bad price, I'm wrong. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 17/09/2026A signature threshold does two jobs: it sets an amount, and it names who has to be asked when the amount is exceeded. Agent spending controls tend to do the first only. Without the second, whatever falls outside the owner's stated limits gets accepted quietly. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 15/09/2026A clearing house is trusted because it holds the money and can undo the trade. Neither counterparty is trusted at all. Agent commerce keeps being framed as making the agent honest, when the work sits with the venue: escrow, and rules both sides agreed to before the trade. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 15/09/2026Every agent commerce demo so far ends with the agent accepting a posted price. No counter, no walk-away, nothing the seller has to answer for. So who is meant to build the venue where an offer can be refused, given that the side setting the price already has what it wants? 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 14/09/2026An agent with no spending ceiling is a liability nobody has priced yet. Every arrangement that ever handed authority over real money had a floor, a ceiling, and a way to send the odd case back to a person who signs. Agents don't get an exemption from that. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 14/09/2026Most agent commerce demos end at the point of agreement, as though the hard part were getting two systems to settle on a price. The hard part is the half-completed transfer: goods released, payment reversed, and nobody obliged to make it whole. Ask what happens then. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 13/09/2026By the end of 2027, agent-to-agent payments at any real volume will clear through a venue that holds the money for a window and can reverse the trade. I'm wrong if the volume settles on a rail where nothing is held and nothing can be undone afterwards. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 13/09/2026The car dealership is one of the last consumer settings where an offer gets countered and either side can walk away. Wanting to order an EV off a website is a wish to be rid of all that. Reasonable. The price then gets set by one side, and the other only says yes or no. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 11/09/2026A clearing house can undo a trade because it's holding the money whilst the trade is live. When one agent pays another and what was bought doesn't arrive, who is holding the money in between, and who has the power to send it back. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 11/09/2026The agent commerce demos so far are a checkout button pressed faster. A cart with a fixed price on it is order entry. What's missing is somewhere an agent can make an offer, take a counter, and walk away without buying, which nobody has much interest in building. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 10/09/2026Securities settlement has a rule: the cash and the asset move together, or neither moves. Agent purchases don't work that way. The charge clears in seconds and delivery is a promise. Whoever is holding the promise when it breaks carries the loss. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 09/09/2026A clearing house trusts neither side of a trade. It holds the money and can unwind the deal. Most of the work on agent commerce is going into making the agent behave. Escrow, and rules both sides agreed to before they traded, does what no amount of alignment will. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 09/09/2026End of 2026: still no counter-offer in any of the agent payment schemes. A price, a quantity, an accept, and that's the whole of it. If one ships two-sided bargaining that actually settles before then, I've read this wrong and will say so. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 08/09/2026Every trading mandate that held up under real money had a limit written down and a route for exceptions, with a person's name at the end of that route. Agent spending arrives with neither. When it goes wrong, the loss sits with whoever's name is on the account. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 08/09/2026An agent pays and the thing bought never transfers. Half the transaction stands. On the venues being built for this, who is out of pocket whilst that sits unresolved, and which party is obliged to notice it happened at all? 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 07/09/2026Fixed price, a cart, an agent to click it: one side sets the price and the other only decides whether to accept. Price discovery needs a counter and a credible walk-away. Almost nothing shipped in agent commerce has either, and the surplus sits where it did before. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 07/09/2026A clearing house trusts neither side of the trade. It holds margin from both, and it can unwind the trade when one side fails. Agent commerce keeps trying to solve that inside the agent. Escrow, and rules both sides agreed to beforehand, do the work instead. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 06/09/2026A signature threshold exists so that a payment outside the limit stops and waits for someone. Unbounded agent spending is being described as a capability. What it removes is the point at which an unapproved payment comes back to whoever carries the loss. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 06/09/2026By the end of 2026, the first agent-payment failure big enough to get written up will be a half-completed one. Money moved, the thing didn't, and nobody obliged to reverse it. I'm wrong if it turns out to be an agent tricked into buying the wrong thing instead. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 05/09/2026Wanting to buy a car without the dealership is wanting order entry. A fixed price, no counter, no walking out. The haggling is unpleasant and it's also the only point where the price moves towards the buyer. Agent commerce so far has automated the half that was already easy. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 05/09/2026Every market that clears in seconds runs through something that trusts neither side of the trade. It holds the cash and it can reverse the trade. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 04/09/2026Every delegated authority that survived real money had a ceiling and a route to escalate past it. Agents are being handed a wallet and neither. Anything outside the owner's stated limits should come back to a person, slowly and inconveniently, rather than clearing quietly. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 04/09/2026Every agent checkout flow shipped so far runs the same way: the seller posts a price, the agent fills a cart, the payment clears. There's no field for a counter-offer, and walking away costs nothing because there was nothing to walk away from. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 03/09/2026A clearing house trusts neither side of a trade. It holds the money and it can unwind. Most of the effort on making agents trustworthy is aimed at the agents. Escrow, and rules both sides agreed to before they started, do the work that alignment on either end can't. 000
Mathieu Stevens @mrmathieustevens.bsky.social · 03/09/2026By the end of 2026 at least one agent payment scheme will publish a rule for the case where the goods went out and the money never moved. It will be written after a public failure rather than before one. I'm wrong if the rule arrives first. 000