The conversation around Agentic Commerce often drifts into the abstract: "AI will buy things."

But practically, how?

If you point a sophisticated AI agent at a traditional e-commerce site today, it will fail. Not because the AI isn't smart enough, but because the infrastructure assumes a human is driving.

To prepare for 2026, you don't need more AI. You need better infrastructure. specifically, you need two fundamental building blocks: A Cloud Cart and A Drop-in Checkout.

The Session Problem

Traditional e-commerce relies on the "Session". A user visits a site, a cookie is dropped, and a cart is created in the browser's temporary storage or loosely tied to that cookie.

Agents don't browse lie humans.

• They don't maintain long-lived browser sessions.
• They might "think" (process) for hours between adding an item and checking out.
• They switch contexts (mobile app, server-side cron job, chat interface).

If your cart lives in a browser session, it is invisible and inaccessible to an agent.

Prerequisite 1: The Cloud Cart

An Agentic Cart must be API-First and Persistent.

It cannot rely on cookies. It must exist as a standalone entity in the cloud, addressable by an ID, and manipulatable via strictly typed API calls.

• Logic-First: The cart must calculate totals, taxes, and promotions server-side. An agent shouldn't have to "guess" the final price; the API must return the exact, legally binding total in real-time.
• Context-Agnostic: The same cart must be accessible by the user on their phone, the procurement bot running on a server, and the support agent in their dashboard.

Geins Cart is built sessionless by default. It allows an agent to instantiate a cart, add items, and validate stock without ever rendering a distinct frontend page.

The Interface Problem

Most checkout flows are designed for eyeballs. They are littered with:

• Visual distractions (Upsells, Banners).
• Unpredictable DOM structures (<div class="btn-primary"> vs <button id="submit">).
• Client-side validation that an API-driven agent can't see until it fails.

For an agent, a "Checkout Page" is a minefield of hallucinations.

Prerequisite 2: The Drop-in Checkout

Agents need a standardized, predictable environment to finalize the transaction.

A Drop-in Checkout (like Geins Checkout) solves this by decoupling the "Look" from the "Logic".

• Machine-Readable: The checkout serves formatted JSON-LD and predictable HTML structures.
• Managed Security: The agent doesn't need to navigate complex 3D-Secure flows wildly; the hosted checkout handles the payment iframe isolation and just reports "Success" or "Failure" back to the agent.
• Performance: Agents operate at machine speed. If your checkout relies on 3MB of JavaScript hydration, the agent will timeout or error. A compiled, optimized Drop-in Checkout responds in milliseconds.

The 9-Step Readiness Framework (Revisited)

In our previous research (inspired by Human Security), we outlined the need for structure.

We can now boil that down to a simple architecture test:

1. Can I create a cart via curl? (Cloud Cart)
2. Can I finalize an order without rendering the frontend? (Drop-in Checkout / API)
3. Does my catalog speak Schema.org?

If you answer No to the first two, your site is invisible to the economy of 2026.

Start Building Today

The shift to Delegation isn't just about letting AI buy. It's about building systems that are robust enough to handle automated buyers.

Geins provides the Cloud Cart and the Drop-in Checkout out of the box. You provide the products. The agents will follow.

Explore Geins Checkout