Agentic Commerce's Three-Horse Race: Why Stripe Might Win Without Anyone Noticing

TLDR: Most people frame the agentic commerce battle as OpenAI versus Google, but Stripe has been quietly positioning itself as the infrastructure beneath both. At its Sessions 2026 event, Stripe shipped a Link agent wallet, an Agentic Commerce Suite with Google and Meta partnerships, and Machine Payments Protocol support via the standard Payment Intents API. This is not a company chasing headlines. This is a company building the rails.

Agentic Commerce's Three-Horse Race