Why Shoppers Still Refuse to Let AI Agents Pay

A Forrester survey of online adults in the US, UK, and Canada this April found that most consumers are not ready to let AI shopping agents handle payments. The vendors building these agents talk about autonomy – full purchase completion, no human click. The people they want to sell to are less impressed.

Forrester asked the question that hangs over the whole push: who is liable when the agent gets it wrong? Wrong size, wrong price, wrong merchant. Consumers do not have a clear answer. Without one, they are not handing over the keys.

The parallel that matters for anyone tracking adoption curves is Apple Pay. Forrester’s data shows it took Apple more than a decade to reach one in four US adults using Apple Pay in a three-month window. That ten-year slog included a global pandemic that pushed millions toward contactless payments. Even with that tailwind, adoption stayed below 25%. The value proposition of Apple Pay – speed, security, convenience – was never in dispute. The friction was behavioral. Trust in a new payment path takes years, not quarters.

AI shopping agents face that same trust wall, plus an extra layer of concern. Apple Pay still puts the human in control of the final tap. The AI agent models take that control away, or at least blur the line. The gap between what vendor demos show and what consumers will actually approve is wide, and it is not closing fast.

For companies betting on autonomous commerce, the timeline just got longer. The technology may be ready. The customer is not.

Forrester clients can read the full survey results and book an inquiry with the author.