AI Commerce Faces Trust and Payment Interoperability Gap

Artificial intelligence is moving deeper into commerce, but consumers are drawing a fairly clear line between asking AI for help and allowing it to handle their money.

A study from Alipay+ and S&P Global suggests that digital commerce is developing faster than some of the infrastructure supporting it. Consumers increasingly expect mobile payments, digital wallets and AI assistance to work wherever they go. The experience on the ground is still much messier.

The study surveyed 6,000 consumers across nine markets in Asia, Europe and the United States about their cross-border spending habits. It found strong demand for more connected digital services, but payment compatibility, security and trust remain significant barriers.

For companies betting on AI agents that can book, buy and pay for consumers, that gap matters.

AI Is Already Part of the Travel Planning Process

AI has moved well beyond being an experimental travel tool. According to the study, 81.3% of consumers already use AI-powered tools to explore destinations and experiences. That makes travel discovery one of the easier entry points for consumer AI because users can ask for recommendations, compare options and build itineraries without giving the technology direct control over a transaction.

The relationship becomes more complicated once AI starts taking action. Around 73.2% of respondents said they would be open to using AI for hotel or flight bookings during the next 12 months. Interest drops sharply when autonomous payments and financial decisions enter the picture, with only 26% expressing interest. Consumers may like the convenience of AI-assisted travel, but giving an agent permission to spend money remains a much bigger decision.

Trust Becomes More Important When AI Can Spend Money

Agentic commerce promises a different kind of online shopping experience. Instead of simply recommending what to buy, an AI agent could search for products, compare prices, make reservations, rebook travel and eventually complete transactions on a user’s behalf. That creates a much higher level of responsibility for the technology.

Consumers appear interested in parts of that experience. The study found that 87.7% value AI-supported bookings and rebookings, while 86.9% see value in AI-assisted payments and refunds. Another 84.6% are interested in real-time AI travel guidance and support. Those figures suggest people are comfortable with AI becoming more useful, but not necessarily more autonomous.

Privacy remains one of the biggest sticking points. Around 43% of respondents raised privacy concerns about AI assistants. The same percentage said they hesitate because they prefer planning their own travel, while 32% would rather receive advice from another person. AI companies therefore need to solve more than model performance. Users need to understand what an agent can access, what it can do and how much control they retain.

Cross-Border Payments Are Still Surprisingly Fragmented

The AI layer may be getting smarter, but the underlying payment experience remains inconsistent. Consumers move between cards, digital wallets, QR codes and NFC payments depending on where they live and where they travel. The study found that 63% of consumers already use mobile payments for most transactions while travelling, showing how important digital payments have become to the travel experience.

Payment habits still vary widely between markets. Travellers from China, Malaysia and Thailand tend to favour QR-based payments, while consumers from the United States, United Kingdom and Germany lean more heavily toward NFC and card-linked digital wallets. A payment method that feels completely normal at home can suddenly become inconvenient abroad.

The study found that 62% of respondents worry about transaction security when using mobile payments overseas. Exchange rates and fees concern 56%, while another 56% point to unfamiliar payment terminal procedures. Merchant acceptance worries 53%. Even before a trip begins, 54% report difficulty using their preferred payment methods when making bookings. One in four travellers still carries cash as a backup.

Digital Wallets Are Becoming Broader Commerce Platforms

Payment apps are also changing their role. Consumers increasingly want one app to handle much more than the final transaction. Rewards and cashback remain powerful incentives, cited by 52% of respondents, while better foreign exchange rates appeal to 51%. Half of those surveyed also value expense tracking.

The demand goes beyond payments. Around 61% of consumers want restaurant reservations and payments inside their apps. All-in-one travel booking attracted 58%, attraction tickets and passes reached 57%, and local transportation booking appealed to 54%. These expectations are pushing digital wallets closer to becoming complete commerce platforms rather than simple payment tools.

That creates an obvious opening for AI. A wallet that already knows how a consumer pays could eventually become the place where an AI assistant finds a restaurant, books a table, applies rewards and completes the payment. The convenience is clear, but so is the need for stronger trust, privacy protections and transparent permissions.

Local Spending Makes Interoperability More Urgent

Cross-border commerce is not limited to airline tickets and hotel bookings. Travellers increasingly spend money with smaller businesses once they arrive at a destination. The study found particularly strong spending growth around food and beverage at 67% and local attractions at 66%.

More than half of respondents, or 54%, also reported spending more at local shops and eateries than at malls or chain restaurants. This matters because smaller businesses may not support the same payment infrastructure as major international brands.

A global hotel chain can usually accept several forms of payment. A small restaurant, independent shop or local attraction may have far fewer options. AI-powered commerce will struggle to feel genuinely seamless if an assistant can recommend a local business but cannot reliably complete a transaction there.

Alipay+ Is Building Infrastructure for Agentic Commerce

Ant International sees digital wallets as one of the natural places for AI commerce to develop. Its Alipay+ unified wallet gateway connects around 2 billion user accounts across 50 global payment partners with merchants in more than 220 destination markets.

The network supports QR and NFC transactions and works with more than 10 national payment schemes. The wider goal is to make payments more interoperable across borders, reducing the need for consumers to change how they pay every time they enter a new market.

The company has also been developing technology around AI-driven commerce. Its Alipay+ Agentic Mobile Protocol, or AMP, is an open-source framework designed for agentic payments on mobile devices. Other products include the Alipay+ Super App Engine, GenAI Cockpit and Voyager AI travel agent. Together, they point toward a future where AI can move between discovery, booking and payment without requiring users to jump between disconnected platforms.

AI Commerce Needs Standards, Not Just Smarter Agents

The next phase of AI commerce may depend less on whether AI can technically complete a purchase and more on whether consumers and merchants trust it to do so. An agent capable of finding the best deal is useful. An agent capable of spending money without clear safeguards is a much harder proposition.

Payment companies and technology providers are already working on standards that could help verify AI agents, communicate consumer intent and give merchants greater confidence when software initiates a transaction. These systems could become increasingly important as agentic commerce moves from controlled demonstrations into everyday consumer use.

Interoperability sits at the centre of the challenge because an AI agent cannot deliver a seamless experience if every wallet, merchant, booking platform and payment network operates as a separate island. Trust matters for an even simpler reason. People behave differently when software starts spending real money.

Consumers Want AI Assistance Without Losing Control

The study points to a fairly clear pattern. Consumers are comfortable using AI to explore destinations, compare options and receive support. Many are also willing to let AI assist with bookings, refunds and other practical tasks.

Autonomous financial decisions remain different. Consumers want convenience, but they also want visibility and control. They need to know when an AI agent is making a decision, what information it is using and whether they can stop or reverse the transaction.

That could shape how agentic commerce develops over the next few years. The companies that succeed may not simply build the smartest agents. They may be the ones that make AI feel predictable, transparent and easy to control.

The Bigger Challenge for AI Commerce

AI commerce is moving quickly, but the supporting ecosystem is still catching up. Consumers increasingly expect payments, wallets, bookings and AI assistants to work across borders without unnecessary friction. That expectation is becoming difficult for fragmented payment systems to meet.

The technology itself is only part of the equation. Payment interoperability, merchant acceptance, privacy, security and consumer confidence will determine how quickly autonomous AI commerce becomes mainstream.

AI already has permission to suggest what people should buy and where they should go. Getting permission to complete the transaction is the harder part.