Agent-to-agent commerce is a proposed model in which software agents negotiate or carry out transactions with other agents. An agent might find a service, agree to terms, or initiate a purchase on a user’s behalf. The model depends on clearly defined authorization: what the agent may do, how much it may spend, and when a person must approve an action.
In cybersecurity, delegated purchasing authority creates risks such as unauthorized transactions, duplicate orders, and exposure of sensitive data. Defenses include narrowly scoped permissions, authentication, merchant-side order validation, payment authorization, replay protection, and audit logs. Idempotency keys can help prevent a retried request from creating a second transaction. These controls distinguish assisted checkout from unrestricted autonomous commerce and make it possible to trace and limit an agent’s actions.