S6E3 PayPal’s Mike Edmonds breaks down agentic commerce and how it redefines trust, loyalty, and the merchant‑of‑record future

Agentic commerce is no longer theoretical. It’s already reshaping how shoppers discover, evaluate, and buy products. In this episode, we sit down with Mike Edmonds, VP of Agentic Commerce & Commercial Growth at PayPal, to break down what agentic commerce really means for retailers right now and how agentic AI is transforming the entire shopping lifecycle.

We explore the three major use cases of agentic commerce, how AI shopping agents are changing product discovery, why payments and trust are now central to the agentic commerce experience, and how retailers can maintain control of customer relationships through merchant‑of‑record models.

If you’ve been trying to understand how agentic commerce works, how agentic AI fits into the retail ecosystem, or what retailers must do in the next six months to stay competitive, this episode delivers the clarity and direction you need.

What You’ll Learn

• What agentic commerce actually is; and why it matters now
• How agentic AI is reshaping product discovery, checkout, and loyalty
• The three core use cases: CUA, agentic checkout, and autonomous agent‑to‑agent shopping
• Why payments, identity, and trust are the foundation of agentic commerce
• How merchant‑of‑record models protect data and customer relationships
• The role of loyalty programs in an agent‑driven world
• Catalog readiness and the challenge of integrating with multiple LLMs
• How close we are to the universal cart
• What retailers must do today to prepare for the agentic shift

Why This Episode Matters

Agentic commerce is moving faster than most retailers realize. As agentic AI becomes embedded in browsers, apps, and everyday workflows, retailers must rethink how they manage trust, identity, payments, and customer experience. This episode gives you the frameworks and real‑world examples to understand how agentic commerce will reshape retail in the months ahead.

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About our Guest

Mike Edmonds. https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeledmonds/

VP Agentic Commerce, Commercial Growth at PayPal. https://www.paypal.com/us/business/ai

Mike Edmonds is VP of Agentic Commerce, Commercial Growth for PayPal, responsible for global commercialization, go-to-market, and operational execution across PayPal’s portfolio of AI-powered and agentic commerce products. Mike brings deep expertise having joined PayPal from Microsoft where he led AI and ecommerce strategy for Microsoft’s worldwide retail and consumer goods industry team. Prior to Microsoft, Mike was an agency operator, entrepreneur, and product leader driving digital transformation across B2B, DTC, and marketplace business models spanning a range of verticals including retail, CPG, high tech, industrial manufacturing, automotive, and foodservice across the US, Europe, and China.

Mike is also an adjunct professor at Northwestern University teaching Kellogg MBA, MS in Design Innovation, and MS in Product Design and Development students through the Segal Design Institute at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Chapters

00:00 Teaser 

01:00 Show Intro 

04:04 Welcome Mike Edmonds 

05:22 Mike’s PayPal Role 

07:14 Defining Agentic Commerce 

14:40 Real World Agentic Checkout 

19:33 Trust Merchant Data Loyalty 

26:16 Loyalty As Differentiator 

27:21 Travel Points And Agentic Commerce 

28:32 Trust KYA And Liability 

34:46 Skills For Future Commerce Careers 

41:54 2030 Multimodal Future And Wrap 

48:40 Show Close

Meet your hosts

Helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AIand Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformationand the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! 

Music

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.