Artificial intelligence is rapidly evolving from a tool that assists humans into something closer to a digital worker. But for AI agents to operate independently, they need a way to transact.
According to Rishin Sharma, head of AI growth at the Solana Foundation , that infrastructure is now starting to emerge.
In an interview with TheStreet Roundtable , Sharma explained that several major technology companies have begun building payment systems designed specifically for autonomous agents.
These types of capabilities are also beginning to appear in experimental agent frameworks such as OpenClaw , which allows AI agents to coordinate tasks, interact with external services, and potentially execute transactions as part of their workflows.
Tools like OpenClaw are helping developers explore how autonomous agents could interact with digital infrastructure in real time.
Related: AI agents prefer Bitcoin over money, study finds
New payment protocols built for AI agents
" Payment protocols, which agents can transact over in the past 12 months, are starting to be built," Sharma said. "Google has released something called AB2, Stripe has built ACP, and Coinbase and Cloudflare have also put out X402."
Traditional payment networks were designed for humans, not automated software. Credit cards, bank transfers, and existing online payment rails typically require identity verification, manual approval, or other steps that prevent fully autonomous transactions.
That creates a challenge for agent based AI systems.
"Agents aren't able to transact in the same way over traditional card networks that we've been using for the past fifteen years of internet commerce," Sharma said.
Stablecoins power agent payments
One emerging solution relies on crypto native payments. Sharma pointed to X402, a system that allows stablecoins to be used to pay for web services directly.
Since x402 payments were launched in May 2025, over 150 million transactions have been sent, with total volume approaching almost $50 million. Usage spike heavily in November, with millions of transactions and volume for multiple days.
Solana has powered nearly 25% of all x402 transactions in that time. In the last 30 days, it has accounted for over 50% of total transaction by itself.
Under that model, an AI agent could automatically purchase access to APIs, computing resources, or datasets needed to complete tasks.
"Say you're paying for an inference API," Sharma said. "You can pay using a stablecoin."
The early numbers are still small compared to traditional online commerce. But Sharma said adoption is accelerating.
According to DeFiLlama, the global stablecoin market cap has climbed to about $312.6 billion. Ethereum dominates the sector, hosting roughly $161.4 billion in stablecoins, or about 51.6% of the total market, making it the largest stablecoin settlement layer.
Tron ranks second with around $86.7 billion, largely driven by USDT activity, while Solana holds about $15.8 billion, showing steady growth as stablecoins expand across multiple blockchains.
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"We've seen almost 150 million transactions and about $50 million of volume since the takeoff," he said. "And almost 70 percent of transactions over the past month have been over Solana."
Those figures remain tiny compared with global payment networks such as Stripe or Visa . But Sharma believes the growth trajectory could be significant as AI agents become more common.
"If you think about five years from now and how much GDP is contributed by human workers versus AI workers," Sharma said, "it could be much less from humans."
If that scenario unfolds, the payment systems supporting those digital workers could form the backbone of an entirely new economic layer.
"These payment frameworks are basically going to be the rails that agents are orchestrating and building their economy on top of," Sharma said.
For now, the infrastructure is still early. But as AI systems gain more autonomy, the ability for software to pay for services on its own may become a fundamental part of how the internet economy operates.
This story was originally published by TheStreet on Mar 6, 2026, where it first appeared in the MARKETS section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
