Ant International unveils tools to power agentic commerce in Asia

By Parth Prabhudesai

Ant International is expanding its focus on agentic commerce across Asia, introducing new payment and AI-driven tools to help global merchants adapt to the rapidly evolving digital shopping landscape.

Agentic commerce, where AI agents autonomously manage the entire shopping journey—from product discovery to payment—has been gaining traction in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2025, the region accounted for nearly a quarter of global agentic commerce revenue, with projections suggesting that Asia could represent half of global consumer transactions in the next decade.

To support this shift, Ant International, through its merchant payments platform Antom, is enabling merchants to navigate fragmented payment ecosystems. The platform provides access to over 300 payment methods across 200 markets via a single integration, helping businesses connect with diverse local payment systems.

Gary Liu, CEO of Antom and Senior Vice President at Ant International, said, “For global merchants, success across international markets demands a partner that delivers both deep digital wallet excellence and comprehensive coverage of payment methods.”

The company is already supporting global firms such as Adobe in expanding into Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, by enabling the use of local acquiring networks instead of traditional card-based systems.

As AI-led commerce grows, security and trust remain key challenges. Ant International is working with Visa and other technology partners to develop secure frameworks for automated transactions, including support for the Universal Commerce Protocol.

Rubail Birwadker, Senior Vice President at Visa, said, “Our focus is on building the necessary trust layer through advanced authentication and tokenisation to secure agent-driven payments.”

Antom has also introduced EasySafePay, a risk management system designed to enhance account protection and improve payment conversion rates. Additionally, its AI-powered assistant, Antom Copilot, supports merchants with integration and dispute management.

The initiative highlights Asia’s growing role as a hub for FinTech innovation and the future of AI-driven commerce.