Blog

With agentic commerce, payments are no longer confined to a single checkout page or even a single platform. As merchants expand into the agentic commerce channel and the customer journey evolves, the ability to securely accept and manage payment credentials has become a core part of building a resilient revenue strategy.

2026 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for payment leaders, with a focus on AI, regulatory pressures, and the growing complexity of global commerce. From flagship industry conferences to intimate executive dinners, the upcoming event calendar reflects where innovation, strategy, and real decision-making are happening.

We’re excited to share that VGS is now included in Stripe Forwarding documentation, making it even easier for Stripe customers to securely share payment method data with VGS and unlock the full power of payment portability.

We are excited to announce Agent Connect, a one-day, in-person event hosted by VGS, bringing together builders, platforms, merchants, and infrastructure leaders who are shaping the future of agentic commerce.

The facts and statistics are in, and companies are quickly adopting next-generation technology. For many, that transformation begins with agentic commerce. We break down the key trends and statistics to be aware of in 2026.

Regardless of how credentials are issued or stored, merchants today face an unavoidable reality: there are two ways credentials can reach a merchant in a transaction flow. That distinction matters more than it might appear, as it will shape how agentic commerce evolves, who controls it (or blocks it), and which merchants ultimately prevail.

The demand for secure yet seamless online payments has never been higher. With cybercrime and online fraud resulting in over $4 billion in losses and counting, businesses face growing pressure to protect both their customers and their bottom line. Enter 3D Secure (3DS), a widely adopted security protocol that plays a vital role in safeguarding card-not-present (CNP) transactions.

Autonomous agents have begun executing purchases on behalf of consumers, and merchants are being asked to accept a rapidly expanding set of payment credentials. At VGS, we’ve already seen merchants receive or prepare to receive at least six distinct credential types from agents and AI-driven commerce platforms.

From autonomous agents executing purchases to network-level credential transformations, the payments ecosystem is entering a moment of rapid realignment in agentic commerce. Networks, issuers, and merchants all recognize that agent-driven transactions represent a new revenue surface, a new fraud surface, and a new control surface. And they’re each lobbying, loudly, for the right to shape how these transactions are accepted, routed, and evaluated.

When major financial institutions make network changes, it can send ripples through the entire payments ecosystem. This year, Capital One announced it will migrate only its debit card portfolio from Mastercard to the Discover network, following the completion of its acquisition of Discover Financial Services.