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

AI agents are already shopping – at the command of their users, without human control over every single step. According to industry forecasts, AI agents could handle up to 25 % of global e-commerce by 2030. For Swiss SMEs, this specifically means: 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 already do today to serve AI agents – and why local payment methods such as 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 deploy agentic AI for operational processes within the next 12 to 24 months. At the same time, AI chats like ChatGPT already account for 15 to 20% of referral traffic for some online merchants – an indication that AI-driven shopping preparation is already a reality today.

The crucial point for shop operators: AI agents are fundamentally different from human shoppers. They do not read images, follow no design, and do not react to discount banners. They require structured data, stable API endpoints, familiar payment methods, and clear pricing information.

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 pricing – without having to crawl the entire website. This is a differentiating factor that many payment providers have not yet implemented.

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

3. Swiss payment infrastructure as an AI advantage

Here lies one of the rarely discussed advantages of local payment providers in the AI era: TWINT and PostFinance Pay are Swiss payment methods that AI systems recognise 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 another payment method, or leave the shopping basket and return later. An AI agent immediately abandons the checkout upon encountering an issue and recommends the next provider.

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

As of: October 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 illustrates what AI agents require technically and what this means for Swiss shop operators:

5. Agentic commerce and B2B: The next wave

While agentic commerce in the B2C sector primarily affects shopping assistants, an even greater shift is foreseeable in the B2B sector: businesses are increasingly deploying autonomous systems that initiate orders, pay invoices, and switch suppliers – all without human approval for each individual 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 concepts, but already in-demand features. Payrexx offers API access, webhooks, and payment links from the Standard plan upwards – fundamental building blocks for B2B automation.

6. What Swiss SMEs can do specifically today

Agentic commerce is not an all-or-nothing topic. Small steps taken today will heavily influence how AI systems evaluate a shop in a year's time. Specifically:

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

• 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 mandatory login

• Configure webhooks: 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 on your own domain?

• TWINT active in checkout?

• PostFinance Pay active in checkout?

• Schema.org Product markup with EUR prices available?

• 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 merchants, Payrexx offers all the technical essentials for agentic commerce starting from the Standard plan (EUR 19/month): REST API, webhooks, hosted checkout, and natively integrated TWINT and PostFinance Pay.