Agentic commerce (also referred to as agent-based commerce) describes an emerging form of e-commerce in which autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) agents independently execute purchasing and payment processes on behalf of users or organizations. Unlike conventional digital commerce systems, which require direct human interaction at key decision points, agentic commerce systems are designed to search for products or services, evaluate options, make purchasing decisions, and complete payments without real-time human involvement. An emerging development within the broader fields of e-commerce, fintech, and artificial intelligence; agentic commerce combines advances in generative AI, autonomous agents, application programming interfaces (APIs), and digital payment infrastructures to direct transactions with no direct human interaction. == Characteristics == A defining feature of agentic commerce is the delegation of end-to-end commercial activities to software agents. These agents typically operate according to predefined user preferences, rules, or constraints, such as price limits, quality criteria, delivery times, or preferred payment methods. Based on these parameters, an agent can autonomously perform tasks including product discovery, price comparison, contract selection, order placement, and payment execution. In contrast to decision-support systems, which provide recommendations to human users, agentic commerce systems are designed to act independently. Human involvement may be limited to initial configuration, periodic supervision, or exception handling. == Comparison with traditional and AI-assisted commerce == Traditional e-commerce requires users to manually browse products, select offers, and authorize payments. Generative AI systems used in commerce commonly assist users by answering questions or suggesting options, and do not complete transactions autonomously. Agentic commerce differs in that decision-making authority is partially or fully transferred to AI agents. As a result, the conventional customer journey, characterized by conscious decision points, may be replaced by continuous, automated micro-decisions performed by software. == Applications and business use cases == Potential applications of agentic commerce include recurring purchases, subscription management, business-to-business procurement, inventory replenishment, and price monitoring. In such contexts, transactions are often predictable and standardized, making them suitable for automation. From a business perspective, agentic commerce systems may be used to optimize supply chains, manage inventory levels, negotiate prices algorithmically, or execute transactions across multiple platforms. Enterprises adopting the new technology include retailers Walmart, Home Depot, Wayfair and Urban Outfitters, and ad tech DSPs, including Google Ads, Amazon, and Yahoo. Chinese tech firms are using apps to provide full-service shopping and payment tools. These includes Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance who are currently developing AI powered shopping apps. The Qwen AI chatbot allows users to complete transactions directly within its interface. US firms are still leading in developing AI models but integration is slower due to privacy restrictions. == Payments and technical infrastructure == Agentic commerce relies on digital payment systems capable of supporting automated, machine-initiated transactions, including API-based payment processing, tokenization, real-time authorization, and continuous risk monitoring. Typical user interfaces, such as shopping carts, may be replaced by backend integrations between AI agents, merchants, and payment service providers. For example, Iike 2025, Alibaba launched Alipay AI Pay, which grew and began operating as an application for different retailers. In December 2025, Alipay teamed up with Rokid to enable developers to integrate AI payments into AI agents on Rokid's Lingzhu platform. In January 2025, Alipay unveiled the Agentic Commerce Trust Protocol in partnership with Alibaba's consumer AI applications, such as the Qwen App and Taobao Instant Commerce. Qwen adopted the platform first, connecting it to Taobao Instant Commerce and Alipay AI Pay. Users could use Qwen's agentic feature to place food and drink orders within the application instead of having to click outside to an external browser. For merchants, participation in agentic commerce may require products and services to be presented in structured, machine-readable formats to ensure discoverability and interoperability with autonomous agents. == Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) == In January 2026, Google announced the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open-source web standard intended to enable interoperability between AI agents and retail systems across the shopping journey, from discovery and checkout to post-purchase support. UCP makes use of REST, JSON-RPC transports, and support for Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), Agent2Agent (A2A), and Model Context Protocol (MCP). == Legal, regulatory, and security considerations == The use of autonomous agents in commerce raises legal and regulatory questions, particularly regarding authorization, liability, consumer protection, and fraud prevention. Existing payment and contract frameworks are generally based on human decision-makers, and their applicability to autonomous agents remains an area of active discussion. Open issues include responsibility for unauthorized or erroneous transactions, mechanisms for dispute resolution, standards for agent authentication, and compliance with data protection and financial regulations. Continuous, automated transaction patterns may also require new approaches to security and risk assessment. Traditional fraud models centered on identity verification may be insufficient for agentic commerce, and that merchants may need intent-based detection methods using machine learning and behavioral analysis to distinguish legitimate AI agents from malicious automation. === Governance frameworks === The deployment of autonomous AI agents in commercial environments has prompted the development of dedicated governance frameworks. These aim to define operational boundaries, decision authority, oversight mechanisms, and accountability structures for agentic systems. The Agentic Commerce Framework (ACF), created in 2025 by Vincent Dorange, is a governance standard that structures the deployment of autonomous AI agents around four founding principles (Decision Sovereignty, Governance by Design, Ultimate Human Control, Traceable Accountability), four operational layers, and 18 governance KPIs. In January 2026, Singapore's Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) published the Model AI Governance Framework for Agentic AI, extending its existing AI governance guidelines to address agent-specific risks including delegation chains and multi-agent coordination. The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) has also proposed an Agentic Trust Framework applying zero-trust principles to AI agent governance. == Ecosystem and implementation == The adoption of agentic commerce typically requires changes in commerce architecture, data modeling, identity and permissions, and API-based orchestration of checkout and post-purchase workflows. Management consultancies have identified agentic commerce as a structural evolution of digital commerce, emphasizing the role of AI-driven agents in automating discovery, decision-making, and transaction processes across commerce systems. McKinsey & Company has described agentic commerce as a significant shift in how consumers interact with brands and how enterprises design their commerce operating models. In Europe, this ecosystem also includes digital commerce consultancies specializing in the adoption of agentic commerce. Consulting firms such as Horrea support brands in understanding and implementing the technological and organizational shifts associated with agentic commerce. == Market development and outlook == Agentic commerce is generally regarded as an early-stage development. Industry analysts have projected that AI-driven agents could account for a small but growing share of digital payment transactions within the coming years. Due to the scale of global digital commerce, even limited adoption could represent substantial transaction volumes. Analysts expect that by 2029, AI agents could handle between 1% and 4% of all digital payment transactions. With a projected total transaction volume of over $36 trillion a year, even a small share translates into a market worth up to $1.47 trillion. According to a McKinsey study from October 2025, agentic commerce projects that by 2030, the U.S. business-to-consumer retail market alone could see up to $1 trillion in revenue orchestrated through agentic commerce. On a global scale, the opportunity could range from $3 trillion to $5 trillion. Early experiments and pilot projects have demonstrated both the potential and current limitations of the
RemObjects Software
RemObjects Software is an American software company founded in 2002 by Alessandro Federici and Marc Hoffman. It develops and offers tools and libraries for software developers on a variety of development platforms, including Embarcadero Delphi, Microsoft .NET, Mono, and Apple's Xcode. == History == RemObjects Software was founded in the summer of 2002. Its first product was RemObjects SDK 1.0 for Delphi, the company's remoting solution which is now in its 6th version. In late 2003 RemObjects expanded its product portfolio to add Data Abstract for Delphi, a multi-tier database framework built on top of the SDK. In 2004, Carlo Kok, who would eventually become Chief Compiler Architect for Oxygene, joined the company, adding the open source Pascal Script library for Delphi to the company's portfolio. Initial development began on Oxygene (which was then named Chrome) based on Carlo's experience from writing the widely used Pascal Script scripting engine. Towards the end of 2004, RemObjects SDK for .NET was released, expanding the remoting framework to its second platform. Chrome 1.0 was released in mid-2005, providing support for .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0, which was still in beta at the time - making Chrome the first shipping language for .NET that supported features such as generics. It was followed by Chrome 1.5 when .NET 2.0 shipped in November of the same year. 2005 also saw the expansion of Data Abstract to .NET as a second platform. Data Abstract for .NET was the first RemObjects product (besides Oxygene itself) to be written in Oxygene. Hydra 3.0, was released for .NET in December 2006, bringing a paradigm shift to the product, away from a regular plugin framework, and focusing on interoperability between plugins and host applications written in either .NET or Delphi/Win32, essentially enabling the use of both managed and unmanaged code in the same project. In Summer 2007, RemObjects released Chrome 'Joyride' which added official support for .NET 3.0 and 3.5. Chrome once again was the first language to ship release level support for new .NET framework features supported by that runtime - most importantly Sequences and Queries (aka LINQ). Development continued and in May 2008 Oxygene 3.0 was released, dropping the "Chrome" moniker. Oxygene once again brought major language enhancements, including extensive support for concurrency and parallel programming as part of the language syntax. In October 2008, RemObjects Software and Embarcadero Technologies announced plans to collaborate and ship future versions of Oxygene under the Delphi Prism moniker, later changed to Embarcadero Prism. The first of these releases of Prism became available in December 2008. Over the course of 2009, RemObjects software completed the expansion of its Data Abstract and RemObjects SDK product combo to a third development platform - Xcode and Cocoa, for both Mac OS X and iPhone SDK client development. RemObjects SDK for OS X shipped in the spring of 2009, followed by Data Abstract for OS X in the fall. In 2011, Oxygene was expanded to add support for the Java platform, in addition to NET. In 2014, RemObjects introduced a C# compiler which runs as a Visual Studio 2013 plugin, that can output code for iOS, MacOS (Cocoa) and Android, in addition to .NET compatible code. In addition, an IDE called Fire was introduced for macOS which works with their C# and Oxygene compilers. Together, the compiler supporting both Oxygene and C# was rebranded as the Elements Compiler, with CE# having the Code name "Hydrogene". In February 2015, RemObjects introduced a beta version of a Swift compiler called Silver as part of its Elements effort. Silver, too, could create code that will execute on Android, the JVM, .NET platform and also create native Cocoa code. Silver added new features to the Swift language, such as exceptions and has a few differences and limitations compared to Apple's Swift. In February 2020, support for the Go programming language was introduced with RemObjects Gold, including the ability to compile Go language code for all Elements platforms, and a port of the extensive Go Base Library available to all Elements languages. In 2021, Mercury was added to the Elements compiler as the sixth language, providing a future for the Visual Basic .NET language recently deprecated by Microsoft. Mercury supports building and maintaining existing VB.NET projects, as well as using the language for new projects both on .NET and the other platforms. == Commercial products == Elements is a development toolchain that targets .NET runtime, Java/Android virtual machines, the Apple ecosystem (macOS, iOS, tvOS), WebAssembly and native and Windows/Linux/Android NDK processor-native machine code in conjunction with a runtime library that does automatic garbage collection on non-ARC environments and ARC on ARC-based environments, such as iOS and MacOS. Because Java, C#, Swift, and Oxygene all can import each other's APIs, Elements effectively functions as Java bonded together with C# bonded together with Swift bonded together with Oxygene as a confederation of languages cooperating together quite intimately. Oxygene, a unique programming language based on Object Pascal, which can import Java, C#, and Swift APIs from the runtime of the target operating system; RemObjects C#, an implementation of C# programming language, which can import Java, Swift, and Oxygene APIs from the runtime of the target operating system and which is intended as a competitor of Xamarin, but Hydrogene's C# targets JVM bytecode instead of Xamarin's C# compiling to only Common Language Infrastructure byte code and needing the accompanying Mono Common Language Runtime to be present in such JVM-centric environments as Android; Silver, a free implementation of the Swift programming language, which can import Java, C#, and Oxygene APIs from the runtime of the target operating system; Iodine, an implementation of the Java programming language. Gold, an implementation of the Go programming language. Mercury, an implementation of the Visual Basic .NET programming language. Fire an integrated development environment for macOS. Water an integrated development environment for Windows. Data Abstract Remoting SDK, a.k.a. RemObjects SDK Hydra Oxfuscator Oxidizer, an automatic translator from Java, C#, Objective-C, and Delphi to Oxygene, from Java, Objective-C, and C# to Swift, and from Java and Objective-C to C#. == Open source projects == Train is an open-source JavaScript-based tool for building and running build scripts and automation. Internet Pack for .NET is a free, open source library for building network clients and servers using TCP and higher level protocols such as HTTP or FTP, using the .NET or Mono platforms. It includes a range of ready to use protocol implementations, as well as base classes that allow the creation of custom implementations. RemObjects Script for .NET is a fully managed ECMAScript implementation for .NET and Mono. Pascal Script for Delphi is a widely used implementation of Pascal as scripting language. == Involvement of other projects == The Oxygene Compiler Oxygene is a language based on Object Pascal and designed to efficiently target the Microsoft .NET and Mono managed runtimes; it expands Object Pascal with a range of additional language features, such as Aspect Oriented Programming, Class Contracts and support for Parallelism. It integrates with the Microsoft Visual Studio and MonoDevelop IDEs.
Trustworthy computing
The term trustworthy computing (TwC) has been applied to computing systems that are inherently secure, available, and reliable. It is particularly associated with the Microsoft initiative of the same name, launched in 2002. == History == Until 1995, there were restrictions on commercial traffic over the Internet. On, May 26, 1995, Bill Gates sent the "Internet Tidal Wave" memorandum to Microsoft executives assigning "...the Internet this highest level of importance..." but Microsoft's Windows 95 was released without a web browser as Microsoft had not yet developed one. The success of the web had caught them by surprise but by mid 1995, they were testing their own web server, and on August 24, 1995, launched a major online service, The Microsoft Network (MSN). The National Research Council recognized that the rise of the Internet simultaneously increased societal reliance on computer systems while increasing the vulnerability of such systems to failure and produced an important report in 1999, "Trust in Cyberspace". This report reviews the cost of un-trustworthy systems and identifies actions required for improvement. == Microsoft and Trustworthy Computing == Bill Gates launched Microsoft's "Trustworthy Computing" initiative with a January 15, 2002 memo, referencing an internal whitepaper by Microsoft CTO and Senior Vice President Craig Mundie. The move was reportedly prompted by the fact that they "...had been under fire from some of its larger customers–government agencies, financial companies and others–about the security problems in Windows, issues that were being brought front and center by a series of self-replicating worms and embarrassing attacks." such as Code Red, Nimda, Klez and Slammer. Four areas were identified as the initiative's key areas: Security, Privacy, Reliability, and Business Integrity, and despite some initial scepticism, at its 10-year anniversary it was generally accepted as having "...made a positive impact on the industry...". The Trustworthy Computing campaign was the main reason why Easter eggs disappeared from Windows, Office and other Microsoft products.
Visible (mobile app)
Visible is a health tracking mobile app for people with long COVID and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). The company was founded by a Harry Leeming, an engineer from London living with long Covid since 2020, and Luke Martin-Fuller. In November 2022, Visible released an open beta of an app that aims to help people pace their activities to avoid post-exertional malaise. The app gathers data on exertion levels, symptom severity, and heart-rate variability. HRV is approximated using a smartphone's camera via a technique called photoplethysmography, and according to the app's developers, can indicate how much someone needs rest. The app is currently free, but is expected to be freemium in the future. Users can also opt to allow their data be used for research purposes. In July 2023, Visible and Imperial College London announced the start of the first two studies. One is on the effects of the menstrual cycle on long COVID symptoms, and the other is on the condition's epidemiology and economic impact. Visible has announced plans to couple the app with activity trackers for continuous monitoring of heart-rate and actimetry data, which the developers claim will be more effective. As of 2022, no clinical trials on Visible's effectiveness have been conducted.
Colour banding
Colour banding is a subtle form of posterisation in digital images, caused by the colour of each pixel being rounded to the nearest of the digital colour levels. While posterisation is often done for artistic effect, colour banding is an undesired artefact. In 24-bit colour modes, 8 bits per channel is usually considered sufficient to render images in Rec. 709 or sRGB. However the eye can see the difference between the colour levels, especially when there is a sharp border between two large areas of adjacent colour levels. This will happen with gradual gradients (like sunsets, dawns or clear blue skies), and also when blurring an image a large amount. Colour banding is more noticeable with fewer bits per pixel (BPP) at 16–256 colours (4–8 BPP), where there are fewer shades with a larger difference between them. The appearance of colour banding is exaggerated by the Mach bands effect. Possible solutions include the introduction of dithering and increasing the number of bits per colour channel. Because the banding comes from limitations in the presentation of the image, blurring the image does not fix this unless the image BPP is higher than the original.
Error level analysis
Error level analysis (ELA) is the analysis of compression artifacts in digital data with lossy compression such as JPEG. == Principles == When used, lossy compression is normally applied uniformly to a set of data, such as an image, resulting in a uniform level of compression artifacts. Alternatively, the data may consist of parts with different levels of compression artifacts. This difference may arise from the different parts having been repeatedly subjected to the same lossy compression a different number of times, or the different parts having been subjected to different kinds of lossy compression. A difference in the level of compression artifacts in different parts of the data may therefore indicate that the data has been edited. In the case of JPEG, even a composite with parts subjected to matching compressions will have a difference in the compression artifacts. In order to make the typically faint compression artifacts more readily visible, the data to be analyzed is subjected to an additional round of lossy compression, this time at a known, uniform level, and the result is subtracted from the original data under investigation. The resulting difference image is then inspected manually for any variation in the level of compression artifacts. In 2007, N. Krawetz denoted this method "error level analysis". Additionally, digital data formats such as JPEG sometimes include metadata describing the specific lossy compression used. If in such data the observed compression artifacts differ from those expected from the given metadata description, then the metadata may not describe the actual compressed data, and thus indicate that the data have been edited. == Limitations == By its nature, data without lossy compression, such as a PNG image, cannot be subjected to error level analysis. Consequently, since editing could have been performed on data without lossy compression with lossy compression applied uniformly to the edited, composite data, the presence of a uniform level of compression artifacts does not rule out editing of the data. Additionally, any non-uniform compression artifacts in a composite may be removed by subjecting the composite to repeated, uniform lossy compression. Also, if the image color space is reduced to 256 colors or less, for example, by conversion to GIF, then error level analysis will generate useless results. More significant, the actual interpretation of the level of compression artifacts in a given segment of the data is subjective, and the determination of whether editing has occurred is therefore not robust. == Controversy == In May 2013, Dr Neal Krawetz used error level analysis on the 2012 World Press Photo of the Year and concluded on his Hacker Factor blog that it was "a composite" with modifications that "fail to adhere to the acceptable journalism standards used by Reuters, Associated Press, Getty Images, National Press Photographer's Association, and other media outlets". The World Press Photo organizers responded by letting two independent experts analyze the image files of the winning photographer and subsequently confirmed the integrity of the files. One of the experts, Hany Farid, said about error level analysis that "It incorrectly labels altered images as original and incorrectly labels original images as altered with the same likelihood". Krawetz responded by clarifying that "It is up to the user to interpret the results. Any errors in identification rest solely on the viewer". In May 2015, the citizen journalism team Bellingcat wrote that error level analysis revealed that the Russian Ministry of Defense had edited satellite images related to the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 disaster. In a reaction to this, image forensics expert Jens Kriese said about error level analysis: "The method is subjective and not based entirely on science", and that it is "a method used by hobbyists". On his Hacker Factor Blog, the inventor of error level analysis Neal Krawetz criticized both Bellingcat's use of error level analysis as "misinterpreting the results" but also on several points Jens Kriese's "ignorance" regarding error level analysis.
Molecular graphics
Molecular graphics is the discipline and philosophy of studying molecules and their properties through graphical representation. IUPAC limits the definition to representations on a "graphical display device". Ever since Dalton's atoms and Kekulé's benzene, there has been a rich history of hand-drawn atoms and molecules, and these representations have had an important influence on modern molecular graphics. Colour molecular graphics are often used on chemistry journal covers artistically. == History == Prior to the use of computer graphics in representing molecular structure, Robert Corey and Linus Pauling developed a system for representing atoms or groups of atoms from hard wood on a scale of 1 inch = 1 angstrom connected by a clamping device to maintain the molecular configuration. These early models also established the CPK coloring scheme that is still used today to differentiate the different types of atoms in molecular models (e.g. carbon = black, oxygen = red, nitrogen = blue, etc). This early model was improved upon in 1966 by W.L. Koltun and are now known as Corey-Pauling-Koltun (CPK) models. The earliest efforts to produce models of molecular structure was done by Project MAC using wire-frame models displayed on a cathode ray tube in the mid 1960s. In 1965, Carroll Johnson distributed the Oak Ridge thermal ellipsoid plot (ORTEP) that visualized molecules as a ball-and-stick model with lines representing the bonds between atoms and ellipsoids to represent the probability of thermal motion. Thermal ellipsoid plots quickly became the de facto standard used in the display of X-ray crystallography data, and are still in wide use today. The first practical use of molecular graphics was a simple display of the protein myoglobin using a wireframe representation in 1966 by Cyrus Levinthal and Robert Langridge working at Project MAC. Among the milestones in high-performance molecular graphics was the work of Nelson Max in "realistic" rendering of macromolecules using reflecting spheres. Initially much of the technology concentrated on high-performance 3D graphics. During the 1970s, methods for displaying 3D graphics using cathode ray tubes were developed using continuous tone computer graphics in combination with electro-optic shutter viewing devices. The first devices used an active shutter 3D system, generating different perspective views for the left and right channel to provide the illusion of three-dimensional viewing. Stereoscopic viewing glasses were designed using lead lanthanum zirconate titanate (PLZT) ceramics as electronically controlled shutter elements. Active 3D glasses require batteries and work in concert with the display to actively change the presentation by the lenses to the wearer's eyes. Many modern 3D glasses use a passive, polarized 3D system that enables the wearer to visualize 3D effects based on their own perception. Passive 3D glasses are more common today since they are less expensive. The requirements of macromolecular crystallography also drove molecular graphics because the traditional techniques of physical model-building could not scale. The first two protein structures solved by molecular graphics without the aid of the Richards' Box were built with Stan Swanson's program FIT on the Vector General graphics display in the laboratory of Edgar Meyer at Texas A&M University: First Marge Legg in Al Cotton's lab at A&M solved a second, higher-resolution structure of staph. nuclease (1975) and then Jim Hogle solved the structure of monoclinic lysozyme in 1976. A full year passed before other graphics systems were used to replace the Richards' Box for modelling into density in 3-D. Alwyn Jones' FRODO program (and later "O") were developed to overlay the molecular electron density determined from X-ray crystallography and the hypothetical molecular structure. === Timeline === == Types == === Ball-and-stick models === In the ball-and-stick model, atoms are drawn as small sphered connected by rods representing the chemical bonds between them. === Space-filling models === In the space-filling model, atoms are drawn as solid spheres to suggest the space they occupy, in proportion to their van der Waals radii. Atoms that share a bond overlap with each other. === Surfaces === In some models, the surface of the molecule is approximated and shaded to represent a physical property of the molecule, such as electronic charge density. === Ribbon diagrams === Ribbon diagrams are schematic representations of protein structure and are one of the most common methods of protein depiction used today. The ribbon shows the overall path and organization of the protein backbone in 3D, and serves as a visual framework on which to hang details of the full atomic structure, such as the balls for the oxygen atoms bound to the active site of myoglobin in the adjacent image. Ribbon diagrams are generated by interpolating a smooth curve through the polypeptide backbone. α-helices are shown as coiled ribbons or thick tubes, β-strands as arrows, and non-repetitive coils or loops as lines or thin tubes. The direction of the polypeptide chain is shown locally by the arrows, and may be indicated overall by a colour ramp along the length of the ribbon.