In 2025, I’ve noticed firsthand how businesses are racing to adapt to the fast-evolving world of AI-driven commerce. Mollie, a prominent European payment provider, has just placed a major bet on the future of shopping. By preparing its systems to integrate with OpenAI’s ChatGPT through the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), Mollie isn’t just participating in the next big trend for commerce, it’s shaping it.
This promises to be a game-changer for entrepreneurs, freelancers, and even larger enterprises who want to stay relevant by incorporating AI-driven shopping experiences. But let’s dive into what this means for us business owners.
Breaking Down Agentic Commerce: What’s the Buzz?
Agentic commerce is an evolution in e-commerce where AI agents like ChatGPT act on behalf of users. These AI systems will find products, compare prices, ask detailed questions, and even complete purchases, all autonomously. Imagine asking ChatGPT to find a custom-made leather journal, and it not only finds the best options but also orders one with your preferred specifications.
This isn’t just adding convenience for customers. Businesses will need to adapt their payment and order processing systems or risk becoming invisible in these new shopping experiences. Here is where Mollie’s move becomes relevant.
Their engineers have already built a payment solution compatible with the ACP standard. According to Mollie’s article on Finextra, they’ve gone as far as testing a customer journey on an AI assistant. Europe's e-commerce sector, with its 14% year-on-year growth rate, makes it a significant testing ground.
How Mollie Preps Businesses for ACP
Mollie has done more than just claim they’re ready for AI commerce. Here’s what they’ve achieved so far to futureproof their platform:
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Integration with ACP Protocols: Mollie’s engineering team designed a payment API that allows fluid interactions with OpenAI’s ACP. This means once your customers use AI to shop, you can still process and track payments seamlessly.
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Versatile Payment Systems: By adopting a protocol-agnostic approach, Mollie aims to accommodate different AI commerce platforms as they gain traction. This strategy is a safety net for all of us, any business using Mollie won’t have to worry whether Google, OpenAI, or another platform ends up dominating.
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Hackathon-Driven Launch: A Lisbon-based hackathon led to Mollie completing an AI-commerce purchase flow. This wasn’t just about programming. It was creating a bridge between conversational AI and existing European merchant systems.
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Focus on Data Privacy: Europe has some of the strictest data protection policies, and Mollie reassures clients that its advancements will comply with all GDPR mandates.
For many businesses still catching up on personalizing the customer experience, adapting to agentic commerce might seem like a stretch. But it’s coming fast, and solutions like this are helping smooth the transition.
Common Mistakes Businesses Will Make
Having been in e-commerce myself, I’ve watched countless businesses scramble to adjust to tech trends. Let me walk through a few pitfalls you should avoid as agentic commerce becomes widespread:
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Ignoring Preparation: Businesses that fail to prepare their payment systems for AI integration will miss out on customers using these assistants. It’s one thing to attract customers through chat-based recommendations; losing them at the point of payment because your platform isn’t ready is a disaster.
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Overcomplicating Payment Processes: Too much friction in payment authorizations will drive away users. With AI handling purchases, streamlined and secure delegated payments will matter more than ever.
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Forgetting Human Connection: While AI makes shopping convenient, customers will value businesses that couple mind-blowing efficiency with respect and empathy. Improved digital systems can't replace emotional connection.
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Underestimating Competition: You’re not just competing against small rivals. With Google and OpenAI pushing these standards, staying ahead means acting as fast as possible.
How to Prepare for the Agentic Commerce Wave
Good news: you don’t need to start from scratch to get ready. Follow these steps to position your business for AI-powered selling.
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Adopt a Flexible Payment Provider: You need a payment service that supports or plans to support agentic commerce. Consider what Mollie is offering, as their ACP-ready infrastructure ensures payments flow when AI agents do their thing.
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Streamline Your Product Data: AI needs well-organized information to match your products with customer requests. Labels, descriptions, pricing, and inventory updates are non-negotiable. Tools available on platforms like Shopify can already support this.
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Focus on Secure Payment Processing: Delegated payment methods like ACP use temporary tokens or spending caps, further reducing fraud risk. Your payment system should comply with these needs.
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Educate Your Team: Staying ahead calls for internal buy-in. Your marketing team needs to learn how to navigate AI-driven customer interactions and optimize product visibility.
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Look Out for AI Commerce Standards: The big players, like OpenAI with ACP, are shaping the plumbing of this new market. Keep in touch with updates, especially for Europe’s entry.
Insights From the Trenches
As someone invested in both tech development and running businesses, I’ve seen how early adoption can unlock opportunities but also overwhelm unprepared companies. Getting ahead of these trends doesn’t mean you have to gamble blindly. It means you have to pay attention to forward-looking tools.
Mollie’s announcement is just the beginning. What sets their approach apart is their commitment to reducing complexity, one point of integration for multiple protocols. This is the kind of move entrepreneurs need from service providers. It's good to see a company build something not just for itself but also for the ecosystem: all of us using it as a critical tool.
Wrap-Up and Takeaway
Agentic commerce might sound futuristic, but it's already here, and Mollie is giving European businesses a major head start with its ChatGPT-ready payment system. For small business owners and budding entrepreneurs, this is the perfect time to explore how your operations can align with similar advancements.
If your payment provider isn’t already planning for ChatGPT-led shopping experiences or thinking ahead for multiple AI commerce protocols, it could leave you lagging behind. For those of us building businesses in the European market, we cannot avoid the rising tide.
Instead of waiting, educate yourself, simplify your processes, and seek out solutions like Mollie’s strategy for agentic commerce to ensure you’re ready for what’s next. By doing so, you're not just securing your revenue streams, you’re future-proofing your value in a market that’s about to look very different.
As entrepreneurs, adapting isn’t optional. It’s the way forward.
FAQ
1. What is Mollie’s role in agentic commerce?
Mollie is a European payment provider that has developed a functional payment system integrated with OpenAI’s ChatGPT via the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), allowing automated payments through AI-driven shopping. Read about Mollie’s agentic commerce initiative
2. What is agentic commerce?
Agentic commerce refers to a new e-commerce approach where AI agents, like ChatGPT, act on behalf of users to perform tasks like finding products, comparing prices, and completing purchases autonomously.
3. What is the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP)?
ACP is an open-source protocol developed by OpenAI that enables AI systems (e.g., ChatGPT) to seamlessly interact with online stores for secure, autonomous purchases and delegated payments. Learn more about Agentic Commerce Protocol
4. How has Mollie prepared for ACP integration?
Mollie developed a delegated payment API and infrastructure compatible with ACP. This enables seamless payment processing for AI-driven transactions and supports multiple protocols, providing flexibility for businesses. Discover Mollie’s ACP integration
5. How significant is the rise of AI-driven shopping?
AI-driven shopping and agent-based commerce are considered the next major shifts in e-commerce, with systems like ChatGPT creating a new customer experience by streamlining product search, comparison, and payments through conversational interactions. Explore agentic commerce in-depth
6. How can businesses prepare for agentic commerce?
Companies can adapt by adopting ACP-compatible payment providers like Mollie, organizing product data for AI compatibility, ensuring secure payment systems, and staying updated on AI commerce standards. Check out Mollie’s guide for businesses
7. Why is Mollie focusing on protocol-agnostic systems?
Mollie seeks to provide seamless integration with multiple AI commerce protocols to future-proof its services and protect businesses from being locked into a single platform.
8. Which industries could benefit most from ACP integration?
Industries like e-commerce, retail, and services that rely heavily on online transactions stand to gain the most from ACP, as it streamlines purchasing processes and improves customer engagement through AI.
9. Are there privacy concerns with AI-driven payments?
Mollie assures compliance with Europe’s strict GDPR standards, ensuring that customer data privacy remains a key focus throughout its ACP integration. Learn about Mollie’s GDPR compliance approach
10. How is Mollie’s innovation a game-changer for European businesses?
By being ACP-compatible, Mollie allows businesses to tap into new revenue channels created by agentic commerce. This future-proofs their systems and enhances their competitiveness in a rapidly evolving e-commerce landscape. Discover why Mollie is leading AI payments
About the Author
Violetta Bonenkamp, also known as MeanCEO, is an experienced startup founder with an impressive educational background including an MBA and four other higher education degrees. She has over 20 years of work experience across multiple countries, including 5 years as a solopreneur and serial entrepreneur. Throughout her startup experience she has applied for multiple startup grants at the EU level, in the Netherlands and Malta, and her startups received quite a few of those. She’s been living, studying and working in many countries around the globe and her extensive multicultural experience has influenced her immensely.
Violetta Bonenkamp's expertise in CAD sector, IP protection and blockchain
Violetta Bonenkamp is recognized as a multidisciplinary expert with significant achievements in the CAD sector, intellectual property (IP) protection, and blockchain technology.
CAD Sector:
- Violetta is the CEO and co-founder of CADChain, a deep tech startup focused on developing IP management software specifically for CAD (Computer-Aided Design) data. CADChain addresses the lack of industry standards for CAD data protection and sharing, using innovative technology to secure and manage design data.
- She has led the company since its inception in 2018, overseeing R&D, PR, and business development, and driving the creation of products for platforms such as Autodesk Inventor, Blender, and SolidWorks.
- Her leadership has been instrumental in scaling CADChain from a small team to a significant player in the deeptech space, with a diverse, international team.
IP Protection:
- Violetta has built deep expertise in intellectual property, combining academic training with practical startup experience. She has taken specialized courses in IP from institutions like WIPO and the EU IPO.
- She is known for sharing actionable strategies for startup IP protection, leveraging both legal and technological approaches, and has published guides and content on this topic for the entrepreneurial community.
- Her work at CADChain directly addresses the need for robust IP protection in the engineering and design industries, integrating cybersecurity and compliance measures to safeguard digital assets.
Blockchain:
- Violetta’s entry into the blockchain sector began with the founding of CADChain, which uses blockchain as a core technology for securing and managing CAD data.
- She holds several certifications in blockchain and has participated in major hackathons and policy forums, such as the OECD Global Blockchain Policy Forum.
- Her expertise extends to applying blockchain for IP management, ensuring data integrity, traceability, and secure sharing in the CAD industry.
Violetta is a true multiple specialist who has built expertise in Linguistics, Education, Business Management, Blockchain, Entrepreneurship, Intellectual Property, Game Design, AI, SEO, Digital Marketing, cyber security and zero code automations. Her extensive educational journey includes a Master of Arts in Linguistics and Education, an Advanced Master in Linguistics from Belgium (2006-2007), an MBA from Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden (2006-2008), and an Erasmus Mundus joint program European Master of Higher Education from universities in Norway, Finland, and Portugal (2009).
She is the founder of Fe/male Switch, a startup game that encourages women to enter STEM fields, and also leads CADChain, and multiple other projects like the Directory of 1,000 Startup Cities with a proprietary MeanCEO Index that ranks cities for female entrepreneurs. Violetta created the "gamepreneurship" methodology, which forms the scientific basis of her startup game. She also builds a lot of SEO tools for startups. Her achievements include being named one of the top 100 women in Europe by EU Startups in 2022 and being nominated for Impact Person of the year at the Dutch Blockchain Week. She is an author with Sifted and a speaker at different Universities. Recently she published a book on Startup Idea Validation the right way: from zero to first customers and beyond, launched a Directory of 1,500+ websites for startups to list themselves in order to gain traction and build backlinks and is building MELA AI to help local restaurants in Malta get more visibility online.
For the past several years Violetta has been living between the Netherlands and Malta, while also regularly traveling to different destinations around the globe, usually due to her entrepreneurial activities. This has led her to start writing about different locations and amenities from the POV of an entrepreneur. Here’s her recent article about the best hotels in Italy to work from.
About the Publication
Fe/male Switch is an innovative startup platform designed to empower women entrepreneurs through an immersive, game-like experience. Founded in 2020 during the pandemic "without any funding and without any code," this non-profit initiative has evolved into a comprehensive educational tool for aspiring female entrepreneurs.The platform was co-founded by Violetta Shishkina-Bonenkamp, who serves as CEO and one of the lead authors of the Startup News branch.
Mission and Purpose
Fe/male Switch Foundation was created to address the gender gap in the tech and entrepreneurship space. The platform aims to skill-up future female tech leaders and empower them to create resilient and innovative tech startups through what they call "gamepreneurship". By putting players in a virtual startup village where they must survive and thrive, the startup game allows women to test their entrepreneurial abilities without financial risk.
Key Features
The platform offers a unique blend of news, resources,learning, networking, and practical application within a supportive, female-focused environment:
- Skill Lab: Micro-modules covering essential startup skills
- Virtual Startup Building: Create or join startups and tackle real-world challenges
- AI Co-founder (PlayPal): Guides users through the startup process
- SANDBOX: A testing environment for idea validation before launch
- Wellness Integration: Virtual activities to balance work and self-care
- Marketplace: Buy or sell expert sessions and tutorials
Impact and Growth
Since its inception, Fe/male Switch has shown impressive growth:
- 5,000+ female entrepreneurs in the community
- 100+ startup tools built
- 5,000+ pieces of articles and news written
- 1,000 unique business ideas for women created
Partnerships
Fe/male Switch has formed strategic partnerships to enhance its offerings. In January 2022, it teamed up with global website builder Tilda to provide free access to website building tools and mentorship services for Fe/male Switch participants.
Recognition
Fe/male Switch has received media attention for its innovative approach to closing the gender gap in tech entrepreneurship. The platform has been featured in various publications highlighting its unique "play to learn and earn" model.
