PSE Consulting: AI agents have started making payments, but who is accountable is unclear
According to Chris Jones of PSE Consulting, customer experience is moving faster than the infrastructure that supports it. On the network of Forter, an online fraud prevention company, agent orders rose 229% month-on-month, but Jones notes that this is a growth rate, not volume.
What's happening
According to Customer Experience Magazine, Chris Jones of PSE Consulting warns that agentic shopping is starting to spread before accountability has been settled. Meta's Muse agent now pays through Stripe's Link wallet, issuing a single-use virtual card where Link is not accepted. In a PSE Consulting study of 4,250 shoppers who use AI in the UK, US, France, and Germany, only 14% say the assistant's top pick is their main deciding factor.
Behind the number
Forter's 229% figure is only the month-on-month growth rate of agent orders on Forter's own network; it does not show volume.
Whose desk it lands on
The head of digital commerce. If an order placed by an agent paying on the customer's behalf is disputed, what record will they answer with?
Our view
The CX Brief's interpretation, not a claim made by the source.
Jones's point is that once an agent makes the payment, it is no longer clear who owns the customer: the order sits with the merchant, the payment credential with the wallet, and the conversation with the agent. When the agent pays, the customer's dispute will land with a service representative who has no record of what the customer told the agent. The real test for agent orders will come not at the moment of payment but at the moment of dispute.
Source
Source:PSE Consulting·Sample: 4,250 shoppers
Reported by: Customer Experience Magazine·November 11, 2026
Conflict of interest: The study is PSE Consulting's own research, not the work of an independent research organization.
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