Fetch.ai Says Its AI Agents Will Overcome Online Retail Barriers Faced by Today’s Tools
The post Fetch.ai Says Its AI Agents Will Overcome Online Retail Barriers Faced by Today’s Tools appeared on BitcoinEthereumNews.com.
In brief Fetch.ai said its AI agents had already booked restaurant reservations and paid deposits in live tests. The system used existing Visa infrastructure, issuing temporary card credentials tied to specific purchases. The company said additional review pushed the public rollout to January, with Mastercard support expected later. Autonomous AI agents have become increasingly proficient at searching and recommending shopping options, but most stop short of completing transactions. Fetch.ai said Thursday that it will roll out a payment system in 2026 designed to let AI agents execute purchases and deposits on a user’s behalf. The new feature set to launch in January addresses one of the largest barriers to wider adoption of agentic AI. While consumer-facing systems can suggest flights, hotels, or services, virtually all of the agentic systems need real-time human approval before handling payments because of security, liability, and regulatory risks. Fetch.ai founder and CEO Humayun Sheikh said the obstacle was less about access to payment rails and more about how AI systems are designed. “We’ve been working on it for at least five years, and the reason is because we’re going to see a transition from the web-based economy to an AI-first economy,” Sheikh told Decrypt. “And the only way to do that is where AI agents can communicate with each other and transact with each other.” The new payment functionality is hosted on Fetch.ai’s ASI:ONE platform and aims to allow agents to book services, place orders, and send payments even when a user is offline. The company said it is working with established financial providers instead of building proprietary infrastructure. “All of these rails matter, but having them isn’t enough if a system can only do one thing at a time internally,” he said. “That’s why ChatGPT hasn’t managed to do this. It doesn’t have a…
Filed under: News - @ December 18, 2025 9:22 pm