Ant Group CEO Declares 'ChatGPT Moment' for AI Agent Commerce Has Arrived
At the Inclusion Bund Conference, Ant Group CEO Han Xinyi announced that AI agent commerce has reached its "ChatGPT moment," shifting AI from answering questions to driving real-world transactions. To accelerate adoption, Alipay established a 10 million RMB fund for life service AI agent developers. As consumer habits evolve toward delegating real-life tasks to autonomous agents, business competition will shift from driving page traffic to offering services that agents can seamlessly understand and invoke. Ant Group estimates that natural interaction payments will account for over 50% of transaction volume within five years. Ant Group highlighted that AI payments must serve as a trusted commitment engine managing authorization, risk control, and accountability when agents spend funds for users. The company also anticipates a tenfold increase in smart device-based payments over the next five years.
## BACKGROUND
Agentic commerce is an emerging e-commerce model where semi-autonomous or autonomous AI agents discover products, compare services, and execute purchases on behalf of humans without real-time manual involvement. This shift relies heavily on specialized AI payment protocols and APIs that maintain security, authorization boundaries, and fraud prevention during automated financial transactions.