Agents will pay like locals, not tourists

(via Sam Broner)

Walk through a bazaar as a tourist, and you’ll witness a spectacle: people buzzing everywhere, gawking at merchandise, comparing wares, sampling items, haggling with every vendor, exchanging coins. It looks like one-off commerce — each interaction its own little negotiation, trust mediated by cash in hand, or value exchanged via card.

But that’s not how most business gets done in the bazaar. Look more closely: Most people are locals, moving purposefully to their favorite merchants. The restaurant owner visits his friends, the butcher, the fishmonger, and the farmer. The tailor goes to the mechanic, the weaver, and the craftsman. They both pay on credit.

When we talk about how agents will pay for things, we default to thinking like tourists.

But agents will behave like locals. The properties that make agents different from humans — infinite duplication, flexible resourcing, zero startup cost — mean that a small number of agents can win niches. And even as agents get easier to build, relationships, partnerships, and trust can help create winning experiences. Dominant agents don’t need tourists’ payment rails. They need vendor relationships, working capital, and credit. The agent can lead the tourist (that’s you).

What does this look like? As agents consolidate into business-like platforms, agent payments must shift from retail payment rails to pre-negotiated B2B terms and credit, an opportunity that current rails can’t fully meet. This is the opening for next-generation payment rails, like stablecoins, if entrepreneurs can build great solutions for next-generation payment scenarios, like agents, streaming payments, and high-volume, low-dollar global business.

This essay explores that idea in three parts: how agents differ from humans and how those differences shape which payment strategies win; why current approaches fall short; and what needs to be built for next-generation payment rails to win.

How agents are different than humans

To understand agents and payments, we have to consider two questions: Will agents act like people or businesses? And will agents play long-term games or short-term ones?

Agents will be more like businesses, with long-term relationships with their vendors and partners. Agents will be lightly customized instances on top of a larger business’s structure — the perfect tour guide from a well-connected travel agency, or a franchisee tuning a playbook for local tastes without renegotiating the supply chain.

Why will agents behave like businesses?

First, the best experiences are thoughtfully designed. I don’t want an agent ...