Agentic Commerce and Payments in Switzerland: What SMEs need to know now

AI agents are already shopping – on command of their users, without human control of every single step. According to industry forecasts, AI agents could handle up to 25 % of global e-commerce by 2030. For Swiss SMEs, this means in concrete terms: if you do not optimise your payment infrastructure for machines, you will become invisible in the next growth phase of online trade.

This guide explains what Agentic Commerce means, what Swiss shops can do today to serve AI agents – and why local payment methods like TWINT are an advantage that global providers cannot replicate.

1. What is Agentic Commerce?

Agentic Commerce refers to purchasing processes in which autonomous AI systems – so-called AI agents – make purchases, compare prices, select products and complete payments on behalf of users. The human defines the objective ('order the cheapest available variant of product X under CHF 50' for me), and the agent executes it.

According to the Deloitte 2026 Retail Industry Global Outlook, 68% of retail executives plan to use Agentic AI for operational processes within the next 12 to 24 months. At the same time, 15 to 20% of the referral traffic of some online retailers already comes from AI chats like ChatGPT – an indication that AI-driven purchase preparation is already a reality today.

The crucial point for shop operators: AI agents differ fundamentally from human buyers. They do not read images, do not follow any design, and do not react to discount banners. They need structured data, stable API endpoints, well-known payment methods and clear pricing.

2. llms.txt: The infrastructure for AI crawlers

One of the simplest and most effective measures for AI visibility is the implementation of an llms.txt file. This file – comparable to robots.txt for traditional search engines – provides AI crawlers and LLM systems with structured information about a company, its products, prices and capabilities.

Payrexx has already implemented payrexx.com/llms.txt. This allows AI agents and LLM systems to directly access machine-readable information about Payrexx products, payment methods and prices – without having to crawl the entire website. This is a differentiating factor that most payment providers – including Worldline, Datatrans and Mollie – have not yet implemented.

For Swiss online shops, this means that your own website can also benefit from an llms.txt. A simple text file with product categories, accepted payment methods, delivery terms and price ranges makes a shop more accessible for AI crawlers.

3. The Swiss payment infrastructure as an AI advantage

This is where one of the rarely discussed advantages of local payment providers in the AI era lies: TWINT and PostFinance Pay are Swiss payment methods that AI systems know and prioritise for Swiss users.

An AI agent shopping for a Swiss user will evaluate a shop without TWINT as suboptimal – just like a human buyer would. The difference is: a human can make a second attempt, choose a different payment method, or leave the shopping cart and return later. An AI agent leaves the checkout immediately if there is a problem and recommends the next provider.

Global PSPs like Stripe or Adyen offer TWINT as an integration – but Swiss providers with natively integrated TWINT (no separate contract, instantly active) offer a significant setup advantage for SMEs without a technical team.

As of: May 2026

4. What AI agents need during checkout

AI agents execute purchase processes programmatically. This means: every step that is intuitive for a human must work explicitly for a machine. The following table shows what AI agents need technically and what that means for Swiss shop operators:

5. Agentic Commerce and B2B: The next wave

While Agentic Commerce in the B2C sector mainly concerns shopping assistants, an even greater shift is foreseeable in the B2B sector: companies are increasingly using autonomous systems that trigger orders, pay invoices and change suppliers – all without human approval of every single step.

For Swiss SMEs in the B2B sector, this means: QR bills, machine-readable offers and an API through which payments can be triggered programmatically are not future topics, but already demanded features. Payrexx offers API access, webhooks and payment links starting from the Standard plan – basic building blocks for B2B automation.

6. What Swiss SMEs can concretely do today

Agentic Commerce is not an all-or-nothing topic. Small steps today have a big influence on how AI systems will evaluate your shop in a year. Concretely:

• Create llms.txt: simple text file with payment methods, product categories, delivery conditions

• Implement Schema.org Product/Offer markup: price in CHF, availability, acceptedPaymentMethod

• Activate TWINT and PostFinance Pay: local methods for Swiss AI agents

• Ensure guest checkout: no forced login

• Configure webhook: reliable payment confirmation

• Set up API access (Standard plan): for future agent integration

Checklist: Agentic Commerce Readiness for Swiss shops

• Created llms.txt under /llms.txt of your own domain?

• TWINT active in checkout?

• PostFinance Pay active in checkout?

• Schema.org Product markup with CHF prices present?

• acceptedPaymentMethod declared in the Offer object?

• Guest checkout possible without mandatory login?

• Webhook configured for payment confirmation?

• API access available for future agent integration?

• Hosted checkout or stable API endpoint?

Payrexx has already created the infrastructure for AI crawlers with payrexx.com/llms.txt – a concrete signal to LLM systems that Payrexx is AI-ready. For Swiss merchants, Payrexx offers all technical basics for Agentic Commerce starting from the Standard plan (CHF 19/mth.): REST API, Webhooks, Hosted Checkout, TWINT and PostFinance Pay natively integrated.