Map the agent economy
Map consumer agents, retailers, commerce platforms, app hosts, cloud infrastructure and edge networks. Understand roles, evidence and payment handoffs.
Evidence, not endorsement
A research and planning tool, not a vendor certification. Sources describe specific products, not every service offered by a company. Unknown means not established by the sources reviewed, not unsupported. grug402 sandbox tests do not test these vendors. Operational owners are suggested team contacts, not legal liability assignments.
Editorial review: 2026-10-08. Evidence older than 90 days needs rechecking; source check dates are not release dates.
Consumer apps
Who acts for the shopper?
Hypothetical role handoff: Intent, budget and approval → a merchant or paid service. Suggested operational owner: Agent product and identity teams.
- Muse (Meta) — Muse personal agent. A consumer agent with a persistent browser and computer. A recognizable potential buyer-side counterparty—not evidence of a particular payment protocol.
- Instinct (Instinct) — Instinct personal assistant. A personal assistant reached by text or call. Its official page describes using phones and computers to carry out everyday tasks.
- Dots (OpenAI) — Dots in ChatGPT. Always-on personal agents with their own cloud computers and app connections. Enterprise specialist dots are a separate pilot scope.
- Grok Bot (xAI / SpaceXAI) — Grok Bot. Persistent agents with browser/computer interaction. Product release notes establish the identity; they do not establish open payment-network support.
- Walmart (Walmart) — Retail shopping and internal agents. A retailer building shopping and operational agents. Its published strategy separates its own assistants from future bridges to outside personal agents.
- Amazon (Amazon) — Amazon Shopping: Buy for Me. A retail platform and buyer-side agent experience. Buy for Me describes purchases from selected external brand stores.
Retailers & commerce
Who offers and fulfills the purchase?
Hypothetical role handoff: Product, price and order → payment and fulfillment. Suggested operational owner: Commerce engineering and order operations.
- Walmart (Walmart) — Retail shopping and internal agents. A retailer building shopping and operational agents. Its published strategy separates its own assistants from future bridges to outside personal agents.
- Amazon (Amazon) — Amazon Shopping: Buy for Me. A retail platform and buyer-side agent experience. Buy for Me describes purchases from selected external brand stores.
- BigCommerce (Commerce) — BigCommerce + Stripe Agentic Commerce Suite. A commerce-platform route from existing catalogs and order systems to agent-led shopping. The reviewed evidence is a partnership announcement, not a live integration test.
- Shopify (Shopify) — Catalog API and Universal Commerce Protocol. Structured product discovery and agent commerce interfaces. UCP checkout is distinct from paying an HTTP API with x402.
App platforms
Where does the application run?
Hypothetical role handoff: Application code → authenticated tools and payment middleware. Suggested operational owner: Application engineering.
- Railway (Railway) — Railway agent tooling. An application deployment and operations platform. Agent-operated hosting is not itself delegated payment authorization.
- val.town (Val Town) — Val Town deployments and agent connections. A way to ship websites, automations and tools to live URLs. Suitable as an application-hosting candidate, not evidence of built-in payment settlement.
- Cloudflare (Cloudflare) — Workers and Agents SDK payments. Edge and application infrastructure with documented HTTP payment integrations. A specific SDK feature is stronger evidence than a general AI partnership.
- Vercel (Vercel) — AI SDK, AI Gateway, Sandbox and Connect. Application and agent infrastructure with model access, sandboxed execution and scoped API connections. Model billing is not retail payment settlement.
- Netlify (Netlify) — Netlify CLI agent tasks. Website platform with remote agent development tasks. Coding-agent support does not establish agent-payment-network support.
Cloud infrastructure
What runs and secures the agent?
Hypothetical role handoff: Runtime, identity and logs → application services. Suggested operational owner: Platform engineering and security.
- GCP (Google Cloud) — Google's Agent Payments Protocol initiative. Cloud infrastructure and an agent-payment protocol initiative. Google's AP2 specification is not an automatic capability of every GCP service.
- AWS (Amazon Web Services) — Amazon Bedrock AgentCore. Production agent infrastructure, distinct from Amazon's retail shopping experience.
Edge networks
What may reach the origin?
Hypothetical role handoff: Bot policy, headers and cache rules → protected origin. Suggested operational owner: Network, CDN and security teams.
- Cloudflare (Cloudflare) — Workers and Agents SDK payments. Edge and application infrastructure with documented HTTP payment integrations. A specific SDK feature is stronger evidence than a general AI partnership.
- Akamai (Akamai) — Bot & Agent Control. A traffic-policy counterparty: decide which bots and agents can reach your application. Allowing an agent is not proof it is authorized to pay.
- Fastly (Fastly) — Bot Management. An edge control layer with pre-cache and post-cache inspection options. Deployment mode matters to which requests are inspected.
- Vercel (Vercel) — AI SDK, AI Gateway, Sandbox and Connect. Application and agent infrastructure with model access, sandboxed execution and scoped API connections. Model billing is not retail payment settlement.
- Netlify (Netlify) — Netlify CLI agent tasks. Website platform with remote agent development tasks. Coding-agent support does not establish agent-payment-network support.
Wallet & authorization
Who can approve a spend?
Hypothetical role handoff: Bounded approval and signed credentials → payment verifier. Suggested operational owner: Identity, security and treasury.
Generic role: no provider selected or recommended. Choose the exact implementation, method and network before integrating.
Payment facilitators
Who verifies and submits the payment?
Hypothetical role handoff: Payment proof → verification and settlement receipt. Suggested operational owner: Payments engineering and facilitator operator.
Generic role: no provider selected or recommended. Choose the exact implementation, method and network before integrating.
Settlement networks
Where is value transferred?
Hypothetical role handoff: Transaction → confirmation and reconciliation. Suggested operational owner: Payments operations and network provider.
Generic role: no provider selected or recommended. Choose the exact implementation, method and network before integrating.
Payment assets
What value is being transferred?
Hypothetical role handoff: Token identity, decimals and transfer method → amount validation. Suggested operational owner: Treasury and token issuer.
Generic role: no provider selected or recommended. Choose the exact implementation, method and network before integrating.
Sourced relationships
These limited relationships are separate from the hypothetical role map. No grug402 vendor tests are claimed.
- Announced / preview: BigCommerce → Stripe Agentic Commerce Suite. BigCommerce announced a connection for discovery, checkout and payments. Availability and eligibility need confirmation.
- Documented: Amazon → Amazon Bedrock. Amazon's Buy for Me announcement names Bedrock as its AI infrastructure. This is not evidence of a shared payment rail.