Monica Eaton, CEO of Chargebacks911, was recently featured in a report by Finextra examining how the rise of “agentic commerce,” or AI systems capable of making purchases on behalf of consumers, could reshape the future of payment disputes. The article explores how autonomous shopping agents may introduce a new category of chargebacks as AI moves from recommending purchases to executing them independently.
The piece explains that agentic commerce is quickly gaining traction across the payments ecosystem. Major networks and platforms are already testing AI-initiated transactions, allowing digital agents to reorder products, renew subscriptions, or even book travel automatically. While this technology promises convenience, it also raises questions about how merchants and banks will interpret consumer intent when a purchase is made by software rather than directly by the cardholder.
“We’re about to see a different type of chargeback,” Eaton said in the article. “The card wasn’t stolen. The merchant didn’t make a mistake. The agent did exactly what it was told to do. But the customer still says, ‘I didn’t want that.’ That is a very different situation.”
According to the report, agent-initiated transactions may blur the traditional signals used to prove purchase intent, such as a customer clicking “buy” or confirming a payment step. As AI assistants gain the ability to shop autonomously in the background, disputes may increasingly arise when customers disagree with decisions their digital agents made—even if the transaction technically followed the rules set by the user.
“The payments industry has always treated the click as the signal of intent,” Eaton added. “Agentic commerce removes the click. So now we need a new way to prove intent when a human was not directly involved.”
