Rails for Shopping Bots
Jandrix@tolaalejandro
The idea
I think AI shopping agents will start doing the buying for us, comparing prices and ignoring ads, so rather than bet on which bot wins I own the rails every bot purchase has to cross: the card networks behind agent checkout, the gatekeepers that let bots into stores and screen fraud, the checkout and wallet plumbing that plugs in, and a smaller slice of stablecoin rails for bot to bot payments. I spread it across all four layers, keep a cash reserve, and plan to hold for years as this plays out, revisiting if one bot platform ends up locking out the others.
What it owns
- Shopping bots still settle purchases on card rails, so card networks collect a fee on every transaction regardless of which bot wins. · Visa Inc.It issues tokenized cards that shopping bots use at checkout, earning a fee on bot purchases regardless of which bot wins., Mastercard IncorporatedIt provides Agent Pay tokens that give each shopping bot its own card credential, collecting fees on bot transactions across all platforms., American Express CompanyIt operates both the card network and verification layer, positioning itself inside bot checkouts to confirm shopper intent on agent purchases.27%
- These companies connect stores and shoppers' payment accounts to bots, becoming embedded in the checkout experience. · Shopify Inc.It connects millions of stores directly to shopping bots through Shop Pay, handling the store side of most bot checkout experiences., PayPal Holdings, Inc.Its wallet serves as a checkout option for bots, earning on purchases when shoppers use saved PayPal accounts inside bot transactions., Affirm Holdings, Inc.It offers pay-later options at checkout that bots can select, earning as bots handle more purchasing decisions., Klarna Group plcIt provides pay-later checkout options integrated into bot and store platforms, serving as a second deferred payment rail., Fiserv, Inc.It processes card payments for millions of stores including its Clover terminals, handling token and card payments from bots.24%
- Stores need infrastructure to distinguish trusted shopping bots from scrapers and fraud, creating a service layer that grows with bot traffic. · Cloudflare, Inc.It sits in front of large website traffic and decides which bots get through, recently showing secure agent purchases across multiple platforms., Akamai Technologies, Inc.It manages bot traffic for large retailers, distinguishing trusted shopping bots from scrapers and fraud as bot traffic grows., Okta, Inc.It handles login and identity verification, confirming that a bot is acting on behalf of a specific person at checkout., F5, Inc.It manages and protects application traffic for large companies, filtering bot traffic as shopping bot volume increases., Riskified Ltd.It assesses whether online orders are legitimate or fraudulent, a task that becomes more complex and valuable as bots increase transaction volume., Fastly, Inc.It operates edge servers and filters bot traffic near users, competing as a smaller alternative to larger traffic management platforms.24%
- Stablecoin networks enable bots to pay each other for data and computing, though volume remains early. · Circle Internet Group, Inc.It issues USDC, the stablecoin bots use to pay each other for data and computing, though this volume remains very early., Coinbase Global, Inc.It built the payment standard and runs the network where bot-to-bot payments settle, sized small because that infrastructure traffic is still developing.15%
- Cash10%