Agentic Commerce Is Coming—Will the Legal System Be Ready?

Artificial intelligence is rapidly evolving from a tool that assists human decision-making into technology capable of acting independently. The next frontier, often referred to as agentic AI or agentic commerce, envisions AI agents negotiating contracts, making purchases, authorizing payments, and completing commercial transactions with little or no human intervention. While enormous investments are being made to develop this technology, far less attention has been devoted to an equally important question: What legal infrastructure will govern autonomous commercial transactions? That is the focus of our latest episode of the Consumer Finance Monitor podcast being released today.   Our guests are Bridget McCormack, President and CEO of the American Arbitration Association–International Centre for Dispute Resolution (AAA) and former Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, and David Hoffman, the William A. Schnader Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. They are the authors of the thought-provoking paper, Agentic Commerce Needs Legal Infrastructure—and the Courts Are Coming, which is published here on AAA's website. Key Topics Discussed: What distinguishes "agentic commerce" from today's AI-assisted transactions. Why traditional contract formation concepts, including clickwrap agreements, disclosures, and consent, may become increasingly difficult to apply. How existing agency law principles, including ratification, could bind companies to contracts negotiated by their AI agents. Why autonomous transactions may generate entirely new forms of litigation, including class actions arising from errors replicated across thousands, or even millions, of AI-driven transactions. The challenges of proving what an AI agent actually agreed to and the need for reliable records of contract formation. The growing importance of arbitration and other dispute resolution mechanisms as commerce increasingly moves to automated and, in some cases, irreversible payment systems such as stablecoins. Practical steps companies should consider now before deploying autonomous commercial agents. Consumer Finance Monitor is hosted by Alan Kaplinsky, Senior Counsel at Ballard Spahr, and the founder and former chair of the firm's Consumer Financial Services Group. We encourage listeners to subscribe to the podcast on their preferred platform for weekly insights into developments in the consumer finance industry.