A new Fintech 2040 paper from Professor Roland Frank explores how AI agents are moving from passive assistants to autonomous actors capable of searching, selecting and purchasing products on behalf of consumers — fundamentally reshaping the future of ecommerce and payments. The paper, Agentic Commerce: China’s Lead, Europe’s Choice , argues that the next battleground in digital commerce will no longer be consumer attention alone, but the hidden "trust and protocol layer" behind AI-driven