Whose Agent Is It? The Merchant Side of Agentic Commerce with Marc Massar

When AI agents start buying and selling on our behalf, who do they really represent? In this new episode of One Vision Podcast, Theodora Lau sits down with Marc Massar — payments veteran and founder of Aura Labs — to unpack the merchant side of agentic commerce that most of the industry is overlooking. They dig into why today's agentic protocols are still walled gardens, what happens when transaction context disappears but liability doesn't, why dynamic pricing gets dangerous at machine speed, and what merchants need to do now before they get trapped in someone else's ecosystem. Marc draws on past lessons to make the case that market design — not smarter agents — is what will determine whether agentic commerce works for everyone or just the platforms that control it.

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

03:03 Protocols and Walled Gardens

10:25 Who Does the Agent Serve

14:20 Post Purchase Identity and Disputes

22:54 Merchant Playbook for Agentic Search

32:41 Consent and Payments Friction

35:25 Dynamic Pricing Meets Agents

39:06 Market Design and Controls

44:48 Seller Data Playbook

51:35 Closing 

📍Hot take: "Whose agent is it? Who benefits?"

Keywords: AI, Agentic Commerce, Fintech, Autonomous Agents, Protocols, Market Design, Digital Commerce, Payments, Data Management

#AI #Fintech #AgenticCommerce #Data #Payments 

More about our guest 

🌐Marc Massar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcmassar/  

More about our host and One Vision Podcast 

🌐Theodora Lau on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theodoralau/ 

🌐Banking on (Artificial) Intelligence (book): https://www.bankingonaibook.com/ 

🌐Unconventional Ventures (company): https://www.unconventionalventures.com/ 

🌐Listen to all One Vision Podcast episodes by visiting: https://shows.acast.com/one-vision

One Vision Podcast is a fintech, banking, and AI podcast hosted by Theodora Lau (Founder, Unconventional Ventures; author of Banking on (Artificial) Intelligence). One Vision goes beyond the headlines on AI, agentic commerce, digital banking, financial inclusion, and the future of money — with founders, analysts, venture capitalists, technologists, and operators building the next chapter of financial services. New episodes weekly. Featured guests include leaders from Ant, bunq, J.D. Power, Forrester, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, SAS, SAP, and Wall Street Journal. Recognized in American Banker's Top 20 Most Influential Women in Fintech.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.