PayPal and Google Outline Future of Commerce with Crypto in Miami

During the Consensus Miami conference on May 10, 2026, senior executives from PayPal and Google Cloud discussed the concept of "agentic commerce," which they argue will depend fundamentally on cryptocurrency as traditional financial accounts are inaccessible to autonomous AI agents. Richard Widmann, Google Cloud's global head of Web3 strategy, indicated that existing banking frameworks do not allow for AI agents to hold accounts, stating, "An agent cannot get a bank account...it just is impossible." He identified crypto as a beneficial alternative, describing it as "a fantastic machine-readable interface for payments."

To facilitate this transition, Google has introduced the Agentic Payments Protocol (AP2), which is an open protocol that aims to standardize how AI can interact with commerce. This initiative has garnered interest from over 120 partners, including PayPal, and has been donated to the FIDO Foundation, a consortium aimed at developing open standards for secure authentication. Widmann likened the significance of AP2 to the x402 payment standard that was provided to the Linux Foundation in the past, emphasizing the need for open dialogues and standards in building a scalable payment infrastructure.

May Zabaneh, PayPal's senior vice president and crypto general manager, highlighted the growing presence of AI traffic in e-commerce, with a survey indicating that 95% of merchants recognize this trend. However, only 20% of these merchants have adapted by creating machine-readable product catalogs. Zabaneh noted the importance for merchants to prepare themselves for this shift in commerce, emphasizing that exposing products in formats readable by AI agents is essential for future success. She recognized that the adoption of PayPal's stablecoin, PYUSD, could serve as a programmable layer that complements this new commerce model.

Challenges remain, particularly regarding liability issues when AI agents make purchases on behalf of merchants, a matter Zabaneh noted requires further industry dialogue. Widmann also emphasized the necessity of developing multi-party custody arrangements, suggesting that an agent should possess only segments of security credentials rather than complete control over a private key to prevent unilateral fund movement.

Both executives expressed their concerns and expectations for the integration of agents into current financial systems. Widmann pointed out a critical question for the industry: how to effectively onboard AI agents into existing capital markets. Meanwhile, Zabaneh mentioned that trust is a significant concern for her and expressed eagerness for the efficiency that AI agents might bring to user experiences.