Will AI Agents Become the Largest Users of Stablecoins?

When I talk with people about agentic commerce, the conversation usually starts with liability and tooling for such ecom.

Uesers are ready but infra and legals are focused on a lot of questions like:

• Who is responsible if an AI agent books the wrong flight?
• Who pays if an AI shopping assistant purchases the wrong product?
• Who handles disputes, refunds, or chargebacks?
• Whow we can give acces to AI agents to our funds?

These are just a lit bunch of important questions. But they may not be the most interesting ones.

The bigger question is: What payment infrastructure will AI agents actually use and is ecom ready for that?

When AI agents become active participants in the ecom, they will need a way to move value as efficiently as they move information. And that could modify the future of payments.

Traditional payment systems were designed for humans and managed by humans. They assume people are awake, available, and willing to control transactions.

AI agents don’t work that way.

They operate 24/7, across multiple jurisdictions and payment methods around the globe in milliseconds.

An AI travel assistant may rebook your flight in Asia at 3:17 AM becuase you plane is late. A Treasury AI agent may rebalance your assets automitically.

These use cases create pressure on traditional payment infrastructure. The banking system was never designed for AI software making thousands of micro - decisions and payments every day. And of cource it is not possiable to allow AI agents acces your funds in tradiaonal banks.

So Why Stablecoins Fit the Agent Economy?

As we see from the above and with regulation comining into force, stablecoins can solve many of the problems AI agents will shortly face.

They are:

• always available
• globally accessible
• programmable and instantly transferable
• API-friendly

Most importantly, they already operate on digital infrastructure.

• An AI agent doesn’t need to wait for a bank to open or manual approval.
• It doesn’t need to understand local payment rails in Latam.
• It doesn’t need to reconcile dozens of intermediaries.
• It simply interacts with programmable money.

This is some of the reasons why stablecoins may become the preferred settlement asset for autonomous systems.

From Human to AI Commerce

Today’s payment systems are largely built around human behavior. Tomorrow’s systems may be built around machine behavior.

Imagine:

• A travel agent AI books flights and hotels.
• A pricing agent negotiates hotel rates or check for the price.
• A logistics agent arranges transportation.
• A Payment agent handles settlements and payments.

Each system communicates directly with other systems.

No emails. No invoices. No manual approvals. Just automated execution within predefined rules and algorithm.

In that environment, stablecoins become more than a payment method. They become the native language of commerce.

The Missing Piece: Trust

Of course, there is still a major challenge - Trust.

Visa, Mastercard, OpenAI, Google, and many others are already building frameworks designed to verify AI agents, authorize actions, and establish accountability. Visa’s Intelligent Commerce initiative is specifically focused on enabling trusted agent-led transactions through tokenization, authentication, spending controls, and agent verification.

The industry understands that before AI agents can move money, they must prove:

• who they are
• who authorized them
• what they are allowed to do
• who is responsible if something goes wrong

This infrastructure is still being built. But the direction is becoming clear.

Why Crypto Have an Advantage

One overlooked reality is that crypto infrastructure was designed for programmable finance and value from day one.

“Wallets, smart contracts, on-chain permissions, tokenized assets, and automated settlement already exist. Many of the tools needed for machine-to-machine commerce are available today.” as we see it. We are working on the api layer for traditional ecom and AI commerce.

In some areas, crypto infrastructure may actually be closer to supporting autonomous economic activity than traditional payment systems.

That doesn’t mean banks disappear.

It means the future may involve a combination of both worlds:

• traditional payment networks providing trust, compliance, and consumer protection
• blockchain networks providing programmable settlement and digital ownership

Portalio’s Perspective

At Portalio, we believe the discussion around agentic commerce is still too focused on AI.

The bigger transformation is happening in payments. The next generation of commerce will not simply be AI recommending products. It will be AI discovering, negotiating, purchasing, settling, and managing transactions via different payment tooling.

It will be soon easy:

• Buy an appartment around the world and make a payment to the owner in local currency via APM using your crypto wallet in second. Smart rooting and payment agents are coming.
• Make a transfer to your friend in Brazil via PIX or Blick in Poland in just a seconds from your crypto wallet.

When that happens, the demand for programmable payment infrastructure will increase dramatically.

And that is why we believe stablecoins may become one of the most important financial technologies of the agentic era.

Not because humans prefer them. But because machines are more suatable to accept and operate.

What Do You Think?

If AI agents eventually manage subscriptions, travel bookings, procurement, and digital services on our behalf, what payment rail will they choose?

Traditional banking infrastructure?

Card networks?

Stablecoins?

Or a combination of all three?