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

AI agents are already making purchases – at the 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: those who do not optimise their payment infrastructure for machines will become invisible in the next growth phase of online retail.

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 goal ('order me the cheapest available variant of product X under EUR 50'), 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 Comerciantes already comes from AI chats like ChatGPT – an indication that AI-supported shopping preparation is already a reality today.

The decisive 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, known payment methods and clear price specifications.

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: your own website can also benefit from an llms.txt. A simple text file with product categories, accepted payment methods, delivery conditions and price ranges makes a shop more accessible to AI crawlers.

3. The Swiss Payment Infrastructure as an AI Advantage

Here lies one of the little-discussed advantages of local payment providers in the AI era: TWINT and PostFinance Pay are Swiss payment methods that AI systems know and prioritise for Swiss users.

An AI agent purchasing for a Swiss user will rate a shop without TWINT as suboptimal – just like a human buyer. The difference is: a human can make a second attempt, choose another payment method, or leave the shopping cart and come back 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, active immediately) offer a major setup advantage for SMEs without a technical team.

Status: May 2026

4. What AI Agents Need at Checkout

AI agents execute purchasing 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 this means for Swiss shop operators:

5. Agentic Commerce and B2B: The Next Wave

While in the B2C sector Agentic Commerce mainly affects shopping assistants, an even greater change 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 initiated programmatically are not future topics, but features that are already in demand. Payrexx offers API access, webhooks and payment links from the Standard plan – basic building blocks for B2B automation.

6. What Swiss SMEs Can Do Concretely Today

Agentic Commerce is not an all-or-nothing topic. Small steps today have a big impact on how AI systems rate a shop in a year. In concrete terms:

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

• Implement Schema.org Product/Offer markup: price in EUR, 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

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

• TWINT active in checkout?

• PostFinance Pay active in checkout?

• Schema.org Product markup with EUR 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?

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

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