Commercial Models for AI Agents

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Short Blog.. but core to a new series that will attempt to address this strategic question

I find it hard to believe that anyone could keep up with the daily technical updates in AI, the pace of innovation is truly astounding. Given the completion of my recent agentic commerce survey, I thought I’d provide a few of my thoughts on the uncertainties surrounding the economics associated with AI agentic architectures.  While the technology is fascinating, the market operation of AI and Agents is nascent. How is value measured? How will it be monetized?  Who has the pricing power?  How will this impact existing markets, systems and participants? My perspective here is based upon my experience in networked businesses, but even more so in measurement (as CEO/Founder of Commerce Signals).

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Stablecoins. Breaking down a momentous set of April announcements

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Impact of Stablecoins on Banks and Central Banks, the Upside for V/MA.

Stablecoins took many amazing leaps in the last 2 weeks. Key developments include

  1. PayPal’s new Stablecoin (PYUSD) earning 3.7% (in PYPL wallet). 
  2. Circle Launches Cross-Border Payment Network:- Circle Payments Network (CPN) – see CPN whitepaper
  3. Paxos and Coinbase, as well as Circle, are pursuing bank charters
  4. Visa to join Paxos and Robinhood in USDG
  5. EU banks are creating a new consortium around stablecoin with the involvement of ING and others.
  6. ECB flags risk of contagion from US crypto push in new policy paper, similarly the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) also published a paper outlining how Crypto and DeFi may destablize finance. 
  7. Italy’s finance minister warns that the attractiveness of US stablecoins poses a bigger risk to Europe than Tariffs.
  8. Regulatory – The STABLE Act has advanced through the House Financial Services Committee, increasing the likelihood of Congress passing legislation to regulate stablecoins (and New Bank Formation Act). Fed Chairman Powell voiced strong support at the Economic Club of Chicago.
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Capital One’s Acquisition of Discover – Set to Reinvent Retail Banking?

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An Update on the Future of Retail Banking – April 2025 By Thomas Noyes

With the conditional approval from the OCC on April 17, 2025, Capital One’s (COF) acquisition of Discover Financial Services (DFS) marks one of the most transformative events in U.S. retail banking in over a decade. While prior large-bank deals often focused on scale, this one signals a strategic reinvention. Capital One, long admired for its technical prowess, is poised to blur the traditional boundaries between credit, savings, and checking—challenging the conventional “retail bank” construct. This merger represents not just an expansion of balance sheet or customers, but a redefinition of what banking can look like in the age of AI, embedded finance, and consumer control.

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Understanding Merchants – Cards on FIle

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Why merchants prefer cards they control. Implications for Agentic, Pay By Bank and beyond… 

Short Blog. My last blogs on the topic were Acceptance Hurdles (2022) and the more technical list of 14 core processing activities in Acceptance Part 1 (2016). 

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The Realities of On-Chain Finance: Why Closed Ledgers Will Lead the Way

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Short Blog.

New technology rarely disrupts industries overnight. Instead, it is first used by existing players in established markets to gain a competitive edge. On-chain finance is no different. While decentralized finance (DeFi) and public blockchains promise a future of open financial networks, the immediate growth will come from closed, permissioned ledgers operated by financial institutions.

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Agentic Payments – Card Considerations

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Options for Cards in Agentic Commerce (Sorry for typos.. )

My friend Simon Taylor wrote an excellent post on the 4 Models of Agentic Payments last week. Discussion in the industry is great, and while I respect Simon’s views, we are not entirely aligned. My focus today is on the card options. 

As I discussed in Agentic Wallets and Federated Data, the models of agentic commerce are in a very high state of flux. While early leaders like OpenAI’s Operator and Perplexity demonstrate the power of what is possible, Google, Amazon and others are in a much better position to use their deep consumer insights and direct connections (from phone and search to Alexa). The initial retailer reaction to Agentic is not positive, with one saying, “We are not looking to enable another Google to disintermediate us in product search; we have our own plans to use AI to improve consumer experience”.  What is certain? AI will profoundly impact how goods are sold and how consumers interact with retailers and specialists (see Hype and Reality of Agentic Commerce). 

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eCommerce Acquiring – Beyond Tokens – The Next Big Wave of Improvement

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Short Blog

© Starpoint LLP, 2025. No part of this site, blog.starpointllp.com, may be reproduced or retransmitted in whole or in part in any manner without the permission of the copyright owner.

Adyen was the largest network “tokenizer” and realized the benefits through enhanced authorization rates and reduced fraud. As I explained in Tokens and Binding 101, this history of tokens in payments is long, with each stakeholder maintaining an ability to tokenize. While all token strategies protect data, network tokens differ in RULES, binding (to a customer and device) and acceptance. For example, Visa’s Cloud Token Framework (CTF) and Mastercard’s Digital Enablement Services (MDES) address 6 key areas:

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