The challenge for AI agents is deciding who pays for automated errors

Imagine asking an AI assistant to book a decent hotel for a weekend away. You give it a budget and say you’d like somewhere near the center, then it finds a room, pays, and sends you the confirmation.The hotel is within budget and in a solid location, but the room has no window, breakfast costs extra, and cancellation is impossible.The software may have followed its instructions closely enough to leave you arguing about a purchase you would never have made yourself. As payment companies build services for AI agents, that gap between permission and satisfaction becomes part of the product they have to sell.In a report released Sept. 8, Mastercard forecasts that one in ten people will routinely use AI agents to shop and pay by 2030.Shopping online can mean comparing a dozen tabs, decoding fees, and wondering whether the product description has omitted something essential. Software that does the tiresome part deserves a chance, but once it can spend money, its mistakes become purchases someone has to undo.Crypto is one way to give that software a payment method. The hard work is deciding how much authority it has and who is responsible when a completed transaction becomes the start of...