The Deep dive: UAE’s shift towards AI-led payments and commerce

By Puja Sharma

The deep dive’ is our bi-weekly exploration of a relevant topic, hot trend, or new product. For Prime subscribers only.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is beginning to reshape how consumers discover, compare and purchase products, with agentic commerce emerging as the next stage of digital shopping. A new study by Visa Acceptance Solutions and PYMNTS Intelligence finds that consumers in the UAE are increasingly comfortable using AI in their shopping journeys, while merchants are preparing for AI agents to become a new sales channel. However, gaps in merchant infrastructure, product data and payment readiness could slow the transition from AI-assisted shopping to autonomous transactions.

Agentic commerce: A new sales channel

The 2026 Global Digital Shopping Index found that 72% of UAE shoppers surveyed used AI during their most recent purchase journey, compared with 53% in Brazil and 46% in the US. UAE consumers also reported the highest digital shopping activity across the three markets, averaging 2.3 digital shopping activities per day.

Consumer expectations are moving beyond AI-assisted product discovery. Around 71% of UAE shoppers surveyed expect to use an AI shopping agent within the next two years, signalling growing interest in systems that can compare products, make recommendations and potentially complete purchases on their behalf.

For financial institutions and payment providers, this shift could introduce new transaction channels, requiring payment infrastructure to support interactions between consumers, merchants and AI agents.

Who is under the radar?

Merchant readiness: Ambition outpaces infrastructure

UAE merchants are increasingly recognising the commercial potential of agentic commerce. Around 74% of merchants surveyed expect AI agents to account for at least 5% of their sales within two years, while 42% anticipate that AI-driven transactions could contribute at least 16% of sales.

However, the infrastructure needed to support these expectations remains limited. Only 19% of merchants surveyed have structured product data that AI agents can read, while 31% can clearly identify when a sale originates from an AI platform. These gaps could affect an agent’s ability to identify products, compare prices, verify availability and complete transactions. Merchants will need to improve data accessibility and integrate systems that support secure and authenticated payment acceptance as AI agents become more involved in purchasing.

Consumer willingness to delegate purchasing decisions is closely linked to control over spending. More than 82% of UAE shoppers surveyed said they would allow an AI agent to make an autonomous purchase if they could set a maximum spending limit. Consumers also prefer permission-based access to personal information, with case-by-case consent emerging as the most selected approach for sharing both shopping and payment data.

This highlights the importance of giving consumers clear control over spending limits, data access and transaction permissions. For banks, payment providers and merchants, establishing these safeguards will be essential to building confidence in AI-led financial transactions.

Payment acceptance: Bridging the readiness gap

Despite the growing use of AI, payment choice continues to influence consumer purchasing decisions. Around 86% of UAE shoppers surveyed said that knowing a merchant accepts their preferred payment method influences where they shop, the highest proportion among the three markets studied.

As AI agents increasingly participate in purchasing decisions, payment providers will need to ensure that transactions remain secure, authenticated and convenient across digital channels. Tokenised payments could play a role in protecting payment credentials while enabling AI agents to initiate transactions within consumer-defined permissions.

The findings suggest that agentic commerce will require more than AI integration. Merchants must also strengthen payment acceptance capabilities, improve product data and establish mechanisms to identify and manage AI-originated transactions.

Why does it matter now?

The growing adoption of AI in shopping could create new opportunities for merchants, banks and payment providers to participate in automated commerce. With consumers already using AI for product discovery and increasingly willing to delegate purchasing decisions, the transition towards AI-led transactions could reshape how payments are initiated and processed.

Visa’s findings highlight the need to close the gap between consumer expectations and merchant readiness. Structured product data, authenticated and tokenised payment acceptance, and consumer-defined controls will be important to enabling secure transactions as AI agents become more active in commerce.

“UAE consumers are clearly ready for the next evolution of AI-powered commerce, and merchants increasingly recognize the growth opportunity it presents. The priority now is to close the gap between ambition and readiness. That means ensuring merchants have the structured data, acceptance capabilities and trusted payment infrastructure needed for AI agents to move securely from discovery to transaction. Visa is focused on helping merchants prepare for this shift by enabling secure, authenticated and tokenized payments while keeping consumers in control of how, when and where their money moves,” said Mario Makary, UAE Country Manager at Visa.