JPMorgan Payments Charts Cautious Strategy on Agentic Commerce, Flags Liability Gaps

JPMorgan Payments has deliberately taken a measured approach to agentic commerce, even as it positions as the largest credit card issuer and merchant acquirer in the U.S. Executive Director of biometrics and identity solutions Prashant Sharma told American Banker the bank wanted "a very clear idea in terms of what's real, what's not real" before making announcements.

The Partnership

JPMorgan partnered with French software company Mirakl to marry JPMorgan Payments' infrastructure and risk controls to Mirakl's agentic commerce infrastructure (Nexus), allowing agents to interact with merchants' product catalogues.

The Liability Gap — Unresolved

Sharma identified a critical unresolved issue: how liability changes when a fourth party (the AI agent) is inserted into the decades-old card network liability model. Current model:

• If issuer authenticates a transaction → issuer liable
• If merchant doesn't invoke 3D Secure → merchant liable

For agentic transactions with nuanced intent ("find me a blue t-shirt in medium under $100, sustainable materials, shipped in 2 days"): who is liable when the agent gets 4 of 5 criteria right? Sharma noted that "having another entity being a part of that liability model, it's just not going to work" under the current framework.

Other Barriers Identified

• Trust: Consumer and merchant comfort with agent-initiated purchases
• Infrastructure: Merchant catalogues lack the granular detail needed for conversational commerce (vs. keyword search)
• Multi-item transactions: Current agent protocols only support single-item purchases — not scalable
• Loyalty systems: Agent transactions must preserve points accumulation and redemption

Timeline Expectation

Sharma expects autonomous agentic transactions to first appear on merchants' own websites using their own agents — not through third-party agent platforms. JPMorgan distinguishes between current "AI-embedded commerce" (consumer still in the loop) and true "agentic commerce" (autonomous).