Is Agentic Commerce Enterprise-Grade, or Not? Yes, Says Ayal Karmi - but It Needs Operational Rails

Why It Matters

The shift to agentic commerce turns conversational AI into a direct sales channel, forcing enterprises to adopt trusted infrastructure or risk losing omni‑channel relevance. nekuda’s solution addresses the critical gap between AI interfaces and secure, compliant checkout processes.

Key Takeaways

• OpenAI and Google launched agentic commerce protocols in 2026
• nekuda offers enterprise‑grade payment rails for AI‑driven checkout
• 2‑5% of ChatGPT daily prompts involve product research
• Brands must retain catalog control amid emerging AI aggregators
• Catalog‑protocol mismatches create “quantum entanglement” for merchants

Pulse Analysis

The rise of agentic commerce marks a pivotal transition from passive chat experiences to active purchasing within generative AI platforms. OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol and Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol, both unveiled in 2026, standardise how agents invoke checkout flows, embedding authentication and compliance directly into the conversation layer. This move legitimises AI as a sales conduit, expanding the addressable market beyond traditional web and app interfaces and prompting merchants to rethink how products are discovered and bought.

At the heart of this evolution is nekuda, a startup that builds the missing enterprise‑grade infrastructure required to safely route AI‑initiated transactions. By offering a payment stack with built‑in guardrails, tokenised authentication, and seamless integration with existing e‑commerce back‑ends, nekuda enables brands to participate in ACP and UCP without surrendering data sovereignty. The company also tackles the “quantum entanglement” of legacy catalog structures, ensuring that SKU variations and inventory signals remain accurate when exposed to autonomous agents, thereby reducing friction and error rates that have plagued early AI‑shopping experiments.

For businesses, the strategic imperative is clear: adopt agentic commerce protocols now or risk falling behind competitors who already embed AI checkout in their omni‑channel strategies. Maintaining control over catalog data, checkout flows, and compliance reporting will differentiate early adopters from those forced into third‑party aggregators like Shopify. As consumer trust in AI platforms grows, the next wave will focus on scaling deterministic, agent‑driven purchases while balancing flexibility and risk, positioning firms that invest in robust agentic rails for sustained growth through 2027 and beyond.