Study

Agentic Payments Readiness: What our DACH merchant survey reveals about the state of the market

AI agents are transforming payments: software acts autonomously where humans once decided and confirmed. Our new DACH merchant survey shows over 80% of respondents are already engaging with Agentic Payments. Report out September 2026.

28/08/26

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Digitisation, Payments

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For decades, payments have followed a tacit basic pattern: a human makes a purchase decision, a human initiates the payment, a human confirms it, via PIN, app approval, or biometric check. This pattern is now breaking up. AI agents – that is, software that autonomously performs tasks on behalf of a user or company – are increasingly taking over not only the research and selection of products but also the payment process itself.

Within just a few months, virtually all major market players, such as card networks, Big Tech companies, and payment platforms, have taken initial steps toward agentic payment readiness. A first glimpse at the findings of the merchant survey conducted as part of this report reveals how relevant Agentic Payments have already become: Almost one-third of the surveyed merchants are already implementing or piloting Agentic Payments, while a further 54% are actively evaluating the topic. Together, more than 80% of respondents are already engaging with this emerging technology. This highlights that Agentic Payments are no longer a distant vision, but an increasingly relevant topic for merchants today. It is therefore worth taking a closer look behind the scenes of Agentic Payments.

Within this report several fundamental questions about Agentic Payments will be covered:

How do we define Agentic Payments?
How agent-ready is the market already and what is still missing?
How do Agentic Payments impact the overall payment ecosystem and what needs to be done to keep pace with the rapidly evolving Agentic Payments landscape?

To mirror the actual market perspective on Agentic Payments a survey with more than 150 merchants in the DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) region has been conducted, querying merchants’ expectations, views on opportunities and challenges, as well as current level of engagement with Agentic Payments.

Stay tuned for the report coming out by the end of September 2026. In the meantime, feel free to reach out to discuss a preview of our results and the implications of Agentic Payments on your organization.