43% of Consumers Expect Digital Wallets in AI Shopping

AI agents are moving beyond product discovery toward completing purchases, making trusted payment connectivity a central issue for agentic commerce. Research from PYMNTS Intelligence and PayPal says shoppers want familiar checkout methods as well as controls over what an agent may buy and how much it may spend. For merchants, failing to support preferred digital wallets or buy now, pay later options can turn strong purchase intent into cart abandonment, making payment choice a competitive factor rather than a back-office feature.

PYMNTS published “The Hidden Cost of Checkout Gaps” on Sept. 10, 2026, drawing on a June survey of 2,179 U.S. adults. It estimated that nearly 56 million U.S. consumers had abandoned an online cart in the previous 30 days because their preferred payment method was unavailable, including about 26 million affected by missing digital wallets. Separately, 47% of shoppers who abandoned carts wanted a digital wallet option, while 43% of consumers said they would probably link one to an AI agent within two years.