The Future of Agentic Commerce is Built on Stablecoins

The next phase of AI is agentic commerce. Autonomous actors aren’t just going to be doing research, they are going to be taking action, and that means moving money.

AI agents are already searching, initiating, and independently completing financial transactions, sometimes continuously. As the software improves and models become more reliable, agentic commerce will only become more common. Businesses are going to increasingly rely on these tools to simplify operations. The problem is today’s payment infrastructure was never designed for agentic actors.

Traditional systems come with human-centric authorization processes, like logins and multi-factor authentication. Fee structures are designed for large, infrequent payments, not the constant programmatic transactions AI agents need to execute. Delayed settlement undermines autonomous decision making, slowing the entire process.

Stablecoins resolve many of these friction points by design. By cutting out intermediaries, they settle faster and come with fewer fees than traditional rails. Stablecoins are programmable, so users and businesses can customize spending conditions, timing, and limits before transactions take place.

This matters most when agents make frequent, granular decisions and purchases. Micropayments are a clear example. An AI research agent may be providing answers in real-time, which requires queries across several data sources, queries that could cost mere cents. Via traditional credit card networks or ACH, sending such small payments is effectively impossible, and the fees alone are higher than the transfer value.

Stablecoins provide a solution. By removing fixed, per-transaction fees, value can move quickly and efficiently. Value moves directly between wallets on global, always-on infrastructure, removing intermediaries and per-hop fees. With stablecoins, it doesn’t matter if an agent sends $100 or $0.001, the incremental cost doesn’t scale the same way it does on traditional rails, making the continuous microtransactions that power AI tools possible.

On fiat rails, rules live outside the money: spending limits, compliance checks, and approvals are layered on top, and enforced by intermediaries after transactions are attempted. Stablecoins flip the model, allowing the rules to be embedded directly into how money is used, not just how it’s monitored. AI agents don’t need to ask for approval or wait for reconciliation, it happens automatically because the controls are built into the flow of payment.

AI companies building agentic commerce tools need an infrastructure provider that can implement stablecoin rails. And companies looking to improve efficiencies with agentic payment tools need a partner that can support this model without forcing them to rebuild their entire payments stack from scratch.

At Rain, we partner with teams to connect stablecoin rails to real-world commerce with compliant, stablecoin-backed cards, so agents can execute transactions and businesses can retain the control and visibility they need.

We see where payments and AI are headed, and we’re building the infrastructure to support the change. If you’re ready to explore new solutions, get in touch.