Ant Group Rolls Out AI Payment Trust System to Break Agent-Commerce Bottleneck

Ant Group Co. has rolled out a new security infrastructure for artificial intelligence agents to execute payments, introducing a “Know Your Agent” protocol to overcome trust hurdles slowing the adoption of AI-driven commerce.

Ant Group chief executive officer Han Xinyi said at the 2026 Inclusion Conference on the Bund in Shanghai on Thursday that the real-world deployment of agent commerce has been slower than anticipated due to a supply-and-demand mismatch, as merchants hesitate to invest without a proven user base.