Mike Edmonds Explains PayPal’s Agentic Roadmap & AI Checkout Future

In this episode of Retailgentic, host Scot sits down with Mike Edmonds, PayPal’s VP of Agentic Commerce & Commercial Growth, to unpack the massive pivot PayPal has made into the Agentic Commerce era, and what it means for retailers, brands, platforms, and developers.

Mike goes deep on:

• PayPal’s Agentic Bet: Why PayPal is going all-in on Agentic Commerce
• Merchant Anxiety, Explained: The real reason so many merchants are anxious about LLMs
• Instant Checkout 2.0: Where PayPal sees Instant Checkout heading next
• Wallets as Identity: Why wallet identity will matter more than ever
• 2030 Predictions: Mike’s bold predictions for shopping agents in 2030
• Two-Track Future: A world split between autonomous commerce and luxury human-led experiences
• Protocol Chaos Simplified: How PayPal plans to tame and unify an explosion of competing protocols
• Merchant of Record Relief: The surprising emotional fear merchants have about disintermediation

As AI agents reshape discovery, checkout, and trust, PayPal is building the rails for the future of digital commerce.

Key Timestamps:
02:15 — Mike introduces his background.
04:45 — How Mike’s career path led directly into PayPal’s Agentic Commerce leadership role.
06:20 — What “VP of Agentic Commerce & Commercial Growth” really means at PayPal.
07:48 — The biggest lessons Mike learned leading AI strategy at Microsoft.
10:35 — What merchants are actually thinking about Agentic Commerce (the real pulse).
12:18 — Mike explains the off-surface vs on-surface Agentic Commerce model.
13:10 — Why merchants feel overwhelmed by LLMs, APIs, and protocol sprawl.
14:47 — PayPal’s role as the one-to-many connector across LLMs and platforms.
16:06 — What technical pieces merchants need in place to integrate Agentic checkout.
17:45 — How on-surface conversational agents can finally boost conversion rates.
19:30 — Why conversational checkout is the missing piece in Agentic shopping.
20:55 — What the Perplexity partnership enables for checkout, payments, and reach.
23:30 — How PayPal is powering ChatGPT Instant Checkout and expanding ACP.
26:12 — Why Agentic protocols are diverging, and how PayPal navigates the chaos.
28:30 — The emotional fear merchants have of LLMs.
30:05 — Mike’s 2030 prediction
31:40 — Why some categories will automate, while luxury experiences stay human.
33:10 — Multimodal will reshape shopping through voice, gestures, and identity.
35:00 — The top concerns merchants raise in every PayPal Agentic conversation.
37:05 — Where to find Mike and what PayPal has coming next.

Announcements & press releases related to the conversations:

• Perplexity: https://newsroom.paypal-corp.com/2025-05-14-Perplexity-Selects-PayPal-to-Power-Agentic-Commerce
• Google (commerce agent for merchants: https://cloud.google.com/blog/topics/financial-services/introducing-an-agentic-commerce-solution-for-merchants-from-paypal-and-google-cloud
• OpenAI: https://newsroom.paypal-corp.com/2025-10-28-OpenAI-and-PayPal-Team-Up-to-Power-Instant-Checkout-and-Agentic-Commerce-in-ChatGPT
• AP2: https://developer.paypal.com/community/blog/PayPal-Agent-Payments-Protocol/ and https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/ai-machine-learning/announcing-agents-to-payments-ap2-protocol
• PayPal’s Agentic Commerce Services: https://newsroom.paypal-corp.com/2025-10-28-PayPal-Launches-Agentic-Commerce-Services-to-Power-AI-Driven-Shopping

👉 Connect with Mike: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeledmonds/
👉 Learn more about PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/us/home

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