Summary
As AI agents gain the ability to make purchases, the payments industry is being reshaped. In this a16z conversation, partner Alex Rampell talks with Terry Angelos, chief strategy officer at VGS (Very Good Security), about what happens when agents hold payment credentials.
The discussion explains what a payment credential actually is, how VGS vaults card data for roughly a third of e-commerce by volume, and how card network tokenization changed the picture. Rampell argues that agents have moved from spectators to actors in the last few months, and describes a growing “wallet wars” as every wallet races to connect to agents. They cover Amazon blocking agent shoppers and the choice merchants face between resisting and welcoming agent commerce.
A concrete example shows the limits of walled-garden approaches: when Stripe Link had no connection to Walmart, Stripe bought the item with a one-time virtual Visa card and then charged the customer separately. That raises hard questions about chargebacks, dispute resolution, and why Visa and Mastercard hold such entrenched positions as trust intermediaries. Essential listening for anyone following agentic commerce, fintech, and the infrastructure that lets AI act with real money.
📺 Source: a16z · Published October 15, 2026
🏷️ Format: Podcast
