a16z: AI-assisted payments are far lower than reported in the media, but adoption is growing.

PANews reported on March 12th, citing Cointelegraph, that a16z partner Noah Levine stated on the X platform that the transaction volume of AI-powered payment agents is far lower than reported in the media. He pointed out that while reports indicated AI-driven payment transactions reached $24 million in the past 30 days, the actual figure, after excluding wash trades, was only about $1.6 million. Levine stated that this discrepancy reflects the fact that even the measurement infrastructure is still in its early stages.

Levine points out that most AI payment activity is currently concentrated in the developer tools sector, such as websites converted into AI data platforms, AI browsers, and AI image platforms. While these companies accept credit card payments, the x402 protocol allows developers or agents to try out their tools without a subscription. Levine emphasizes that $1.6 million isn't a large sum, but the infrastructure built around it is massive. Stripe, Cloudflare, Vercel, and others have integrated x402, and Google has also embedded it in its agent payment protocol. These companies are betting on the future scale when agents become the default buyers.