Visa executive: 2026 will be the "Year of AI Shopping Guide"
AI-assisted shopping will be fully popularized next year, but full agency by AI robots will take time
Oliver Jenkyn, President of Visa's Global Markets Group, predicts that as collaborations between payment giants and artificial intelligence companies accelerate, "AI-assisted shopping" will fully enter the mainstream by 2026.
"AI-assisted shopping" enters everyday life
According to a report by Bloomberg on Saturday, Jenkyn pointed out that while chatbot-based shopping features will be launched in 2025, the real turning point will occur next year. At that time, interactive shopping on generative AI platforms like ChatGPT will no longer be a novelty for geeks but a part of everyday life for the general public. Jenkyn stated:
"By 2026, AI-supported shopping methods will be fully popularized. Whether on ChatGPT or other platforms, intelligent assistants will deeply intervene and assist in my shopping decisions."
He also mentioned that it will take time for the evolution from "AI-assisted decision-making" to the more advanced "Agentic Commerce"—where AI robots fully take over payment and purchasing.
The current obstacle is not technology, but consumer psychological inertia. Jenkyn analyzed that most users, after accepting AI's suggestions, still prefer to retain control over the final payment, stating, "Many people will still click links and complete transactions in the traditional way."
Therefore, the implementation of Agentic Commerce will show characteristics of layered penetration: standardized, high-frequency daily necessities orders such as laundry detergent and coffee creamer are expected to be the first to break through the trust barrier and be automatically completed by AI agents.
Global payment giants accelerate positioning
In the face of this impending paradigm shift, global payment giants are accelerating their positioning, trying to secure a foothold as consumers turn to chatbots as a new traffic entry point.
Jenkyn revealed that Visa is currently communicating with all major players in the industry. Meanwhile, Mastercard announced earlier this year that it had reached a partnership with Microsoft; PayPal signed an agreement with OpenAI in October this year, planning to directly embed its digital wallet into OpenAI's chatbot
