Three agentic commerce protocols, three questions. ACP (OpenAI and Stripe, September 2025) covers how an agent completes a purchase at a merchant. AP2 (Google, September 2025) covers how a person's authorization travels with that purchase. x402 (Coinbase, May 2025) covers how two machines settle value without a human account in the middle. Which one matters depends on where you are exposed.
https://contraco.net/agentic-commerce-protocols-compared.html
#AgenticCommerce #Payments
Frank Meltke
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A payment your software completes without you present is still your payment. A standing order is autonomous and nobody worries about it, because amount, payee and schedule were fixed when it was set up. An agent given a budget and a goal is also autonomous, and almost nothing about the transaction was fixed in advance. The narrower the configuration, the less anybody has to decide afterwards.
https://contraco.net/autonomous-payments.html
#Payments #AIAgents