How ACI Worldwide Is Powering Agentic Commerce

Agentic commerce – where AI acts as a buyer as well as an adviser – is becoming a disruptive force in fintech.

This is a phenomenon explored by ACI Worldwide’s Chief Strategy and Growth Officer, Philip Bruno at the MIT Sloan Fintech Conference.

Joining peers from Synchrony, NVIDIA, PwC and Airwallex, Philip sets out to define what commerce might look like when AI starts making purchasing decisions on our behalf.

This comes as digital ecosystems will evolve as AI agents initiate discovery, comparison, and purchasing autonomously – a topic that blends the sophistication of modern payments orchestration with the next wave of consumer empowerment, as well as risk.

“As AI becomes an active participant in commerce, the winners will be the companies that embed secure, intelligent wallet experiences directly into the merchant journey,” Philip says.

“Agentic systems only work when three things can be guaranteed: permission that can be verified, identity that persists across the entire transaction and evidence that ensures a fair outcome when something goes wrong.”

Agentic commerce and the importance of trust

For ACI Worldwide – which provides intelligent payments orchestration for banks, billers, and merchants – the positioning of agentic commerce is more than an academic discussion.

The company sees agentic commerce as a natural evolution of its core mission to make digital payments both secure and seamless. 

Bruno’s central thesis – that systems enforcing trust will define competitive advantage – addresses one of the thorniest challenges in AI-driven transactions: accountability.

For Bruno, a clear important step is to separate hype from current reality when it comes to agentic commerce. 

Among the trends already gaining traction – and working well – are zero‑click purchasing, interoperable wallet protocols and early agent‑driven shopping flows.

But, as Bruno and peers emphasise, not all autonomous commerce innovations are equally promising. Much‑touted standalone bots, voice‑only assistants and isolated consumer agents, for example, have delivered limited practical results. 

ACI Worldwide claims that the next phase  will focus on control. Which entity, platform or AI agent will become the consumer’s primary point of interaction?

AI enhancing – not replacing – payments infrastructure

Bruno’s remarks at MIT build on research from ACI showing that while AI can transform workflows and customer engagement, payments infrastructure remains inherently deterministic and therefore, reliable. 

“Bruno’s perspective builds on ACI’s recent work showing that while workflow‑based applications may be disrupted by Gen AI, deterministic payments infrastructure is strengthened, not replaced, by agentic technologies,” the company says.

“AI enhances trust, fraud detection, exception handling and transaction intelligence, but the underlying rules‑based systems remain essential for compliance, auditability and safety.”

About ACI Worldwide’s Philip Bruno

Philip joined ACI Worldwide in January 2025 after three decades at McKinsey & Company.

This experience allows him to bring a broad view of the financial ecosystem to ACI Worldwide.

As a former co‑lead of McKinsey’s Global Payments Practice, he advised financial institutions during several waves of digital and cloud transformation. 

Now, at ACI Worldwide, his mandate is to translate those insights into growth opportunities built on resilient global infrastructure.

ACI Worldwide which handles 11% of global card transactions. Philip’s mandate is to accelerate revenue by embedding the real-time payments platform into AI ecosystems, ensuring interoperable digital wallets and deterministic infrastructure scale with Gen AI.