EC & AI Commerce News Digest (February 11, 2026)

Today's Top Stories

Agentic Commerce Emerges as Central Industry Theme — Fortune and Diginomica Run Simultaneous Features

Agentic commerce will reward the fastest learners, not the biggest retailers | Fortune

Agentic commerce could reach far faster than e-commerce ever did — and digital markets rarely reward late movers.

Fortune published an article stating that "agentic commerce could scale faster than e-commerce ever did, leaving late movers with little room to catch up." The piece analyzes the competitive landscape of agentic commerce—where AI agents handle product selection through purchase—centered on OpenAI, Shopify, and Amazon.

Additionally, Diginomica featured nekuda CEO Ayal Karmi arguing that "agentic commerce is enterprise-grade, but it needs operational rails." His point is that the key lies not in the technology itself, but in building operational infrastructure that integrates payments, authentication, and compliance.

Multiple major media outlets covering agentic commerce simultaneously signals that this concept has shifted from "future possibility" to "present-day reality requiring immediate action."

Full Article: Agentic Commerce Will Scale Several Times Faster Than E-Commerce — The Era Where "Fastest Learners" Win

Klarna Joins Google Universal Commerce Protocol — Accelerating Agentic Payment Standardization

Klarna Backs Google's Universal Commerce Protocol to Power the Future of 'Agentic' Shopping

Klarna has joined Google's Universal Commerce Protocol, an open standard designed to enable AI agents to handle end-to-end shopping—from discovery to payment—across the $1trillion agentic commerce market.

BNPL giant Klarna has announced its participation in the "Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)," an open standard promoted by Google. UCP enables AI agents to process everything from product discovery to payment in a single flow.

Klarna's participation gives UCP significant credibility in the payment layer. This brings the end-to-end shopping experience—where AI agents not only select products but also complete payments—closer to reality. As a standardization effort targeting the $1 trillion agentic commerce market, this development warrants close attention from e-commerce businesses.

Full Article: Klarna Joins Google's UCP — Payment Giant's Entry Accelerates the "Common Language" of Agentic Commerce

Agentic Commerce

x402 vs UCP — Comparing AI Agent Payment Protocols and Their Challenges

x402 vs UCP: What Challenges Lie Ahead for AI Agent Commerce? | HackerNoon

UCP and x402 are two protocols shaping how AI agents buy things online. Here's how they work, where they differ, and why proxy infrastructure is the real need.

HackerNoon published a comparison of the two major protocols for AI agents shopping online—Google-led UCP and Coinbase's x402.

UCP is an HTTP-based open protocol focused on integration with existing e-commerce infrastructure. In contrast, x402 leverages the HTTP 402 status code and is designed around cryptocurrency micropayments. The article argues that neither protocol is sufficient alone and that building proxy infrastructure is the real challenge.

E-commerce businesses are approaching a time when they must choose which camp to support.

Full Article: x402 vs UCP — The Future Two Major AI Agent Payment Protocols Envision and the Barriers to Real-World Implementation

Is Agentic Commerce Enterprise-Grade? — The Need for Operational Rails

Is agentic commerce enterprise-grade, or not? Yes, says Ayal Karmi - but it needs operational rails

nekuda CEO Ayal Karmi argues that agentic commerce is enterprise-ready, but it needs proper operational infrastructure to function at scale.

nekuda CEO Ayal Karmi, whose company focuses on agentic payment infrastructure, discussed the practicality of agentic commerce in Diginomica.

While evaluating that the technology for AI agents to recommend products and accept orders has already matured, he warns that without "operational rails" for payment processing, authentication, and compliance, it cannot function at scale. nekuda has received investment from Visa, American Express, and others, and is building payment infrastructure specifically for AI agents, stating that "connecting the past 20-30 years of e-commerce infrastructure to the agentic era is the challenge for 2026-27."

AI Commerce Tools

SPS Commerce Embeds Agentic AI "MAX" in Supply Chain

SPS Commerce Embeds Agentic AI Into Supply Chain Execution

SPS Commerce introduces MAX, embedding agentic AI into supply chain workflows and raising new expectations for execution, integration, and network performance.

EDI and supply chain network giant SPS Commerce announced its agentic AI feature "MAX." It monitors over 300,000 supply chain connections, automatically detecting anomalies and proactively resolving issues.

MAX is delivered embedded within the existing SPS network, anticipating order processing delays and inventory discrepancies and proposing responses. E-commerce businesses and suppliers can expect improved supply chain visibility and response speed.

ChatGPT Ads Launch Day After Being Mocked in Super Bowl Commercials

ChatGPT Ads Launch a Day after Being Mocked in Super Bowl Commercials - EcommerceBytes

Despite being mocked in a Super Bowl ad for its decision to add ads to its ChatGPT AI tool, OpenAI launched a test for the ads on Monday.

OpenAI has begun testing ads in ChatGPT. This came the day after a Super Bowl commercial mocked AI ad insertion.

With ads entering ChatGPT, advertising content may become mixed into AI-powered product searches and purchase recommendations. For e-commerce businesses, this creates an opportunity to use ChatGPT as a new advertising channel, while also requiring attention to the impact on user experience.

Corporate News & Partnerships

Amazon Considers AI Content Marketplace for Media

Amazon may launch a marketplace where media sites can sell their content to AI companies

Amazon is reportedly working on a marketplace that would allow media companies to sell their content to AI companies for training data.

According to TechCrunch, Amazon is considering building a marketplace where media companies can sell their content to AI companies.

As unauthorized use of web content by AI companies becomes problematic, Amazon's plan is to provide a platform for content licensing. This would create new revenue streams for media companies while allowing AI companies to legally acquire training data. In the e-commerce space, content such as product reviews and product information may also see its value reassessed.

Full Article: Amazon Considers Building "Content Marketplace" to Sell Media Content to AI Companies — Race for AI Training Data Infrastructure Heats Up Following Microsoft

Shopify Q4 Earnings Preview — Market Focuses on Agentic Commerce Strategy

Shopify Q4 earnings preview: Agentic commerce and international expansion in focus | Seeking Alpha

Shopify (SHOP) Q4 earnings preview: EPS/revenue forecasts, AI 'agentic commerce' strategy, analyst upgrades and risks.

Ahead of Shopify's Q4 2025 earnings release, analyst attention is focused on agentic commerce strategy and international expansion. Multiple analysts have raised price targets, and while BMO slightly lowered its target, it maintains a positive outlook.

How Shopify evolves its Google UCP support and AI shopping assistant features will be key points of interest in the earnings announcement. Share prices have already risen ahead of the earnings, reflecting high market expectations for agentic commerce.

Global E-Commerce Trends

Coupang Data Breach of 33.7M Records Called "Worst Ever" by Korean Government

Gov't calls Coupang breach of 33.7m records worst ever - The Korea Herald

A former Coupang employee accessed tens of millions of user records over seven months by forging internal authentication keys — an incident the Korean government called the worst ever.

South Korea's largest e-commerce company Coupang discovered that a former employee forged internal authentication keys and accessed 33.7 million user records over seven months. The Korean government has classified this as the "worst data breach ever" following a joint investigation.

The government has indicated that the cause was not a sophisticated cyberattack but rather Coupang's inadequate management controls. This case reaffirms the importance of internal controls and access management for e-commerce businesses.

Payments & Fintech

Brazil's Instant Payment System Pix Poised to Capture Half of E-Commerce Market by 2028

Instant payment system Pix poised to capture half of Brazil's e-commerce market by 2028 | Reuters

Brazil's instant-payment system Pix is likely to account for half the nation's e-commerce transactions by 2028, widening its lead over credit cards, according to a new study.

According to Reuters, Brazil's instant payment system Pix is expected to account for half of the country's e-commerce transactions by 2028. Its lead over credit cards is expected to widen further.

Pix was introduced by Brazil's central bank in 2020 and has rapidly grown due to its low fees and instant settlement. It is outpacing credit cards in e-commerce payments, demonstrating the potential of real-time payments in emerging markets.

Fiserv Accelerates Growth with AI and BNPL

Fiserv looks to AI to spur its recovery | PaymentsSource | American Banker

Following a massive earnings miss three months ago, Fiserv on Tuesday reported signs of stability and an embrace of new payments and financial-services technology.

Payment infrastructure giant Fiserv is positioning AI and BNPL (buy now, pay later) as pillars of its growth strategy following a significant earnings miss last quarter.

The company is advancing AI-powered fraud detection and merchant analytics tools while expanding BNPL services to provide new payment experiences. This reflects the accelerating trend of AI integration in the payments industry.

Summary

Today's EC and AI commerce news is dominated by "agentic commerce." Major media outlets including Fortune and Diginomica running feature articles on the same day signals that this concept has fully entered the industry mainstream.

On the technology front, Klarna's participation in Google UCP and competition with x402 is intensifying the payment protocol standardization race. SPS Commerce's MAX demonstrates that agentic AI is expanding into the supply chain domain.

Going forward, the biggest point of interest is whether Shopify's earnings announcement will reveal concrete progress on its agentic commerce strategy. How ChatGPT's advertising test will impact AI-powered shopping experiences also warrants close attention.