The Fragmenting Gate: Who Controls Agentic Commerce Is Splitting Across Every Layer

While 89% of merchants are actively preparing for agentic commerce, only 3% of transactions currently involve autonomous agents, according to the Checkout.com 2026 report. This gap between preparation and execution is not merely a technical hurdle; it is a structural collision. As the industry attempts to scale, the control points of digital commerce are fragmenting across infrastructure layers, with the fundamental question of who controls the gate splitting rather than consolidating. Merchants are increasingly reclaiming protocol-level control to manage how agents interact with their storefronts. Shopify recently implemented robots.