TL;DR
Get smart everyday buys delivered free with Prime
- Fast, free delivery on millions of items
- Prime Video, Amazon Music and more included
- Member-only deals all year
Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said AI could help improve cross-border payment screening, cybersecurity and routing, while raising new risks as agents gain authority to shop and pay. He described agentic commerce as early-stage and said more trust mechanisms and safeguards are needed for autonomous purchases.
Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said artificial intelligence could help make cross-border payments more efficient and secure, while AI agents that shop and pay for consumers will require stronger safeguards. In a speech at Sibos 2026 in Miami on September 29, Waller described agentic commerce as an early-stage development that could reshape payments if adoption grows.
Waller pointed to sanctions screening and anti-money-laundering systems as areas where large language models may improve the handling of cross-border payments. He said research has shown that these models can reduce false-positive alerts, potentially freeing investigators to focus on more complex cases and allowing legitimate transactions to proceed with less friction. He expects LLMs to augment faster, traditional anomaly-detection methods, rather than replace them.
He also addressed AI’s potential role in cybersecurity and payment routing. AI may help cyber professionals detect threats, manage exposure and identify software vulnerabilities, Waller said, but could also increase the volume and sophistication of attacks. For cross-border transfers, AI agents could help weigh cost, speed and reliability when choosing payment routes, as well as support decisions about currency conversion, liquidity and offsetting flows. Those benefits depend on having suitable data and criteria.
Waller described two approaches to agentic commerce. In an agent-assisted purchase, an AI helps a consumer find products, while the consumer makes the decisions and completes payment. In an agent-delegated purchase, the consumer authorizes an agent to shop and pay within specified limits. He gave the example of an agent using a pre-funded virtual card to buy groceries based on past purchases. Consumer-to-business purchases are expected to be an early use case, with assisted shopping preceding more autonomous transactions.
Safeguards for Agent-Made Purchases
The shift from product recommendations to delegated purchasing changes who initiates a transaction. When an agent can spend on a consumer’s behalf, payment systems and consumers need ways to define the agent’s authority and limit unintended purchases. Waller said the delegated model carries higher risks of unintended purchases and requires a more extensive buildout of trust mechanisms and guardrails.
The stakes also extend beyond retail. Cross-border payments connect multiple jurisdictions, and Waller said threat actors can exploit gaps between them. AI-assisted screening and routing could help payment providers handle complex decisions, while AI-enabled attacks could put interconnected infrastructure at risk. Waller cautioned that defenders face an uneven task: attackers may need to exploit one vulnerability, while operators must protect a broad attack surface.
These are potential effects, not reported outcomes from a deployed system. The speech sets out areas of opportunity and concern; it does not establish that AI has already reduced payment costs, prevented attacks or produced widespread autonomous purchasing.
AI-powered cross-border payment security tools
As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.
As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.
From Screening to Shopping Agents
Waller placed the current developments in a longer history of AI use in payments. He said the industry has used machine learning to combat payment fraud and adopted large language models early for reconciliation and similar tasks. The newer development is building infrastructure that lets agents plan and execute multistep processes, including transactions.
At an industry roundtable hosted at the Federal Reserve earlier in the summer, participants discussed agentic commerce. Waller said market participants broadly regard it as still in an early phase, even as they see potential for it to reshape commerce and payments if adoption scales. Consumers could encounter agents from AI firms or individual merchants; personal AI assistants may also become a channel for shopping.
Waller’s speech also situated AI within ongoing discussion about cross-border payment improvements, including the possible role of stablecoins. His focus was on how AI might contribute through screening, cybersecurity and complex routing decisions. The speech does not claim that these tools resolve cross-border payment problems on their own.
virtual prepaid cards for autonomous shopping
As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.
As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.
Adoption and Control Limits
The speech does not specify when agent-delegated shopping might become widespread, which trust mechanisms providers will adopt, or how consumers will set and enforce spending limits across different agents. Waller said adoption scaling could reshape payments, but gave no forecast or measure of current consumer use.
He cited research on reducing false-positive alerts but did not provide figures, a comparison baseline or details of the studies in the supplied speech text. The size of any effect on payment speed, cost, fraud losses or cybersecurity remains unclear. The speech also raises the possibility of more capable attacks without quantifying their likelihood or impact on payment networks.
AI fraud detection cybersecurity tools
As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.
As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.
Building Rules for Delegated Spending
The next steps described in the speech are industry work rather than a dated regulatory or product milestone. Payment providers and AI firms will need to develop the infrastructure and safeguards that let consumers set limits and give agents authority to transact. Waller’s account points to trust mechanisms and guardrails as prerequisites for broader delegated commerce.
For cross-border payments, providers may explore AI tools for screening, cyber defense and routing, while retaining faster anomaly detection methods. The speech gives no implementation timetable or announcement of a specific Federal Reserve program. Further details on deployment, consumer protections and measured results remain to be established.
As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.
Key Questions
What did Christopher Waller say about AI and payments?
Waller said AI may support cross-border screening, cybersecurity and payment routing. He also discussed agents that can shop and pay for consumers, a field he described as early-stage.
What is the difference between agent-assisted and agent-delegated shopping?
With agent-assisted shopping, the agent helps find products while the consumer chooses and pays. With delegated shopping, the consumer authorizes the agent to make purchases within set constraints.
Did Waller say AI agents are already widely making purchases?
No. He said market participants broadly view agentic commerce as being in an early phase. The speech did not give adoption figures or a timeline for widespread use.
What risks did Waller identify?
He cited unintended purchases in delegated commerce and the possibility that AI could increase the sophistication or volume of cyberattacks. He said payment operators also face the challenge of defending highly interconnected systems.
Source: primary
Halloween Picks
halloween
As an affiliate, we earn on qualifying purchases.
