---
title: "AI Agents Can Now Buy for You. Why Most UK Shoppers Won't Let Them"
url: "https://bizztor.com/insights/agentic-commerce-ai-agents-uk-shoppers/"
author: "Bizztor"
author_url: "https://bizztor.com/author/bizztor/"
date_published: "2026-10-19T08:32:00.000Z"
date_modified: "2026-10-19T08:39:17.571Z"
category: "Insights"
description: "Visa, Mastercard and UK banks now let AI agents pay at real retailers. Just 6% of UK shoppers would let one buy unchecked. Here's what has to change."
publisher: "Bizztor"
---

# AI Agents Can Now Buy for You. Why Most UK Shoppers Won't Let Them

> Visa, Mastercard and UK banks now let AI agents pay at real retailers. Just 6% of UK shoppers would let one buy unchecked. Here's what has to change.

**AI agents bought real products for shoppers at European retailers this summer, through a Visa programme backed by more than 30 banks including Barclays, HSBC UK, Lloyds, NatWest and Revolut.** Yet only 6% of UK shoppers say they would let an AI buy something without checking first.

That gap between what the technology can do and what people will allow is the whole story of agentic commerce in 2026. The banks, card networks and payment firms are ready to let software spend money. Most customers are not, yet.

McKinsey estimates AI agents could [orchestrate $3 trillion to $5 trillion of global goods sales by 2030](https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/the-agentic-commerce-opportunity-how-ai-agents-are-ushering-in-a-new-era-for-consumers-and-merchants), including up to $1 trillion in US retail. Whether anything close to that happens depends on a few unglamorous problems being solved first.

## What is agentic commerce, in plain terms?

It is shopping where an AI does the buying, not just the searching. Today most people use ChatGPT or Gemini to compare products and then buy on the retailer's website themselves.

In agentic commerce, the AI goes further. It finds the item, picks the seller, fills in the checkout and pays, using card details you have authorised and within limits you have set.

UK shoppers draw a clear line between those steps. A survey of 2,000 UK adults for B&Q and Screwfix owner Kingfisher found most are happy for AI to recommend products, far fewer want it filling their basket, and fewer still want it paying without asking.

**Chart: UK shoppers want AI to suggest, not to spend**
Share of UK adults happy for an AI shopping assistant to do each step.
Source: [Kingfisher research with Andrew Grill, 2,000 UK adults, published November 2025](https://retail-systems.com/rs/Kingfisher_Research_Reveals_28pc_Of_UK_Adults_Trust_AI_To_Make_Purchases_Without_Permission.php)

| Label | Value (%) | Note |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Recommend products | 58% |  |
| Add recommendations to my basket | 38% |  |
| Buy without asking permission | 28% | three quarters of these would cap spending at £99 |

[Download the data (CSV)](https://bizztor.com/data/agentic-commerce-ai-agents-uk-shoppers/chart-1.csv)

Younger shoppers are more relaxed. Among 18 to 24-year-olds in the same study, more than half were happy to let AI buy on their behalf.

## Can AI agents actually buy things in the UK yet?

Yes, but only in pilots. On 2 July 2026, Visa said AI agents had completed [live purchases on merchant websites across Europe](https://www.visa.co.uk/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases.3457328.html), with more than 30 card issuers taking part.

The UK names on the list include Barclays, HSBC UK, Lloyds Banking Group, Nationwide, NatWest, Revolut and Vanquis. The merchants included lastminute.com and Frasers.

Every transaction was approved with Visa Payment Passkeys, which use the fingerprint or face check on your phone. Visa says that keeps the payments within Europe's Strong Customer Authentication rules.

Mastercard is running its own system, Agent Pay. Santander and Mastercard completed what they called Europe's first live AI agent payment in March 2026, after earlier launches in the US and Australia.

Asia is moving too. Ant International, the payments group behind Alipay+, [began rolling out its Agentic Mobile Protocol](https://www.theasianbanker.com/press-releases/ant-international-expands-agentic-mobile-protocol-rollout-begins-kya-interoperability-framework-collaboration-with-mastercard-and-visa) to 10 digital wallets with about 1.5 billion accounts in September, working with payment firms including Adyen, Checkout.com and Worldline.

| Date | What happened |
| --- | --- |
| September 2025 | OpenAI launches Instant Checkout in ChatGPT, built with Stripe |
| March 2026 | Santander and Mastercard complete Europe's first live Agent Pay payment |
| March 2026 | OpenAI moves Instant Checkout into retailer apps inside ChatGPT |
| April 2026 | Ant International launches its Agentic Mobile Protocol |
| July 2026 | Visa announces live agent purchases with over 30 European banks |
| July 2026 | HSBC UK completes an end-to-end agent purchase on a live UK site |
| September 2026 | Ant's protocol begins rolling out across 10 Asian wallets |

## Why hasn't agent shopping taken off yet?

Because people like asking AI for advice more than they like letting it pay. OpenAI found this out first.

In September 2025 it launched Instant Checkout, so ChatGPT users could buy without leaving the chat. By March 2026 it was pulling back. "Instant Checkout is moving to Apps, where purchases can happen more seamlessly," an OpenAI spokesperson said, meaning purchases now go through retailer apps such as Instacart and Target inside ChatGPT.

Only a handful of merchants had gone live. Shopify president Harley Finkelstein told an investor conference the hold-up was on the AI companies' side rather than the merchants'. Reports at the time said people were researching products in ChatGPT and then buying somewhere else.

The UK data is more mixed. In Adobe's March 2026 survey of 2,014 UK consumers, 37% had used an AI assistant to shop, and 34% of those had bought something inside it. Trust at the moment of payment is still low, though: [a ThoughtSpot poll run by YouGov](https://www.resultsense.com/news/2026-09-08-uk-shoppers-ai-recommendation-trust/) found only 10.6% of UK adults trust an AI suggestion when buying.

## What do UK shoppers want before an AI can pay for them?

Control. In a [Worldpay survey of 2,000 UK consumers](https://fstech.co.uk/fst/Worldpay_Research_Suggests_AI_Agents_Could_Drive_29bn_Of_Online_Payments_By_2030.php), 60% said they want to review every transaction before it goes through, and only 6% would let AI buy automatically.

**Chart: Most UK shoppers want a veto before an AI agent pays**
What UK consumers want from AI shopping agents. Only 6% would let one buy without checking.
Source: [Worldpay, 2,000 UK consumers, published November 2025](https://fstech.co.uk/fst/Worldpay_Research_Suggests_AI_Agents_Could_Drive_29bn_Of_Online_Payments_By_2030.php)

| Label | Value (%) |
| --- | --- |
| Review every transaction first | 60% |
| Cancel within 24 hours | 58% |
| Fraud protection | 54% |
| Set spending limits | 46% |
| Speak to a real person if it goes wrong | 44% |
| Let AI buy automatically without checking | 6% |

[Download the data (CSV)](https://bizztor.com/data/agentic-commerce-ai-agents-uk-shoppers/chart-2.csv)

Interest is real, though. [Research for Commerce and PayPal](https://www.commerce.com/en-GB/press/64-of-uk-consumers-want-to-use-agentic-ai-for-shopping-according-to-new-research-from-commerce-and-paypal/) in March and April 2026 found 64% of UK online shoppers want to try agentic shopping tools, mostly to find the best price and every discount.

Their biggest worries were AI buying without approval (43%), bank account security (39%) and buying the wrong product (32%). 46% said brands should not be able to pay AI tools for better placement.

People also have a price in mind. Checkout.com found UK shoppers willing to let AI buy set an average ceiling of about £200, and would start with dull, repeat purchases such as groceries, phone bills and household goods.

Worldpay's shoppers expect about 7% of their online purchases to go through AI agents by 2030. Worldpay puts that at up to £29 billion of UK spending.

## Who pays if an AI agent buys the wrong thing?

Nobody knows yet, and that is a big part of the hold-up. UK payment rules were written for people, not software acting for them.

Under current payment services rules, the bank or payment firm usually carries the cost of an unauthorised payment. [Law firm Pinsent Masons notes](https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/analysis/what-new-rules-agentic-ai-payments-look-like) that it is unclear whether an agent's mistake falls on the shopper, the AI developer, the payment firm or the retailer.

Strong Customer Authentication is another snag. It assumes a person is present for each payment, which does not fit an agent making repeat purchases.

UK regulators are working on it. In March 2026 the Financial Conduct Authority said it would consider whether payment rules need to change for agentic AI. The Bank of England's Sarah Breeden has said that "relying on a human in the loop for all agent actions is unlikely to be realistic".

No new rules have been published. Until they are, banks are building their own guardrails, such as spending caps, passkeys and approval for each purchase.

## What will it take for AI shopping to become normal?

Four things, based on where the pilots and surveys point.

Agents need an identity. Retailers must be able to tell a trusted agent from a bot. Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol, backed by Cloudflare and Akamai, and the know-your-agent framework Ant, Visa and Mastercard are building do this job.

Payments need limits people set. Passkeys, spending caps and time-limited permissions turn "let the AI pay" into "let the AI pay up to £50 for groceries this week".

Mistakes need an easy undo. Shoppers asked for 24-hour cancellation and a human to call. Clear liability rules from the FCA would settle who refunds what.

Shops need to be readable by machines. An agent can only buy what it can understand, so product data, stock levels and prices have to be accurate and structured.

Ant International's chief innovation officer, Jiang-Ming Yang, has described the goal as letting agents "enter existing mobile payment systems as trusted actors". The early movers are banks and card networks, not shops.

## What should UK founders and retailers do now?

Start with the shopping journeys agents will reach first. Repeat, low-value, low-emotion purchases are where UK shoppers say they would hand over control, so that is where agent-ready checkout matters soonest.

Clean up your product data. Agents compare structured information, not lifestyle photos. Prices, sizes, delivery dates and returns terms need to be accurate everywhere they appear.

Check you are not blocking good agents. Many sites block automated traffic by default. Ask your payment and security providers whether they support verified-agent schemes such as Visa's protocol.

Watch your AI traffic. Visits from AI assistants to UK retail sites rose 149% in a year and now convert better than other traffic, as Bizztor's [UK AI search statistics](https://bizztor.com/insights/uk-ai-search-geo-statistics-2026/) show.

Make cancellation easy. 58% of UK shoppers want a 24-hour cancellation window, and a clear refund route will matter more when the buyer is software.

For B2B founders, agents are arriving in the back office faster. Intuit has agreed to buy London's Sequence, which uses AI agents to automate billing, in a [deal reported at about $200 million](https://bizztor.com/news/intuit-acquires-london-fintech-sequence-200m-deal/), and UK startup [Adfin raised $18 million](https://bizztor.com/news/adfin-raises-18m-series-a-to-build-agentic-finance-platform-for-uk-smes/) for agentic finance tools aimed at SMEs.

The shift to agents paying for things will not happen in one jump. It will start with groceries and phone bills, inside limits shoppers set themselves.

_Bizztor covers AI and the UK startup economy every week. Follow [Bizztor on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/company/bizztorcom/) for the latest._

---

Source: https://bizztor.com/insights/agentic-commerce-ai-agents-uk-shoppers/