Jesse Pollak of Coinbase Foresees AI Agents as the Next Major Trend in Cryptocurrency Payments

The swift emergence of AI agents is transforming the online payment landscape, with cryptocurrency infrastructure poised as a natural fit, according to Jesse Pollak of Coinbase. Pollak noted in an interview with CoinDesk that what was nearly impossible just nine months ago has become entirely feasible, thanks to the rapid advancement of autonomous AI systems. As these agents evolve, the need for native transaction methods is becoming increasingly apparent. “Agents, being software-defined and operating on software, require money to be represented as software,” Pollak explained, ahead of his appearance at Consensus Miami 2026 next month. This shift is driving interest in ‘agentic payments,’ where AI systems can autonomously pay for services such as data access, computation, or travel bookings. Pollak expressed his hope that a crucial component of this stack will be x402, an open-source payments protocol developed by Coinbase and collaborators like Microsoft, Google, and Mastercard, which enables on-demand API payments without the need for subscriptions or traditional billing systems. Instead of relying on legacy payment rails, blockchain-based payments allow agents to make a single API call or smart contract call, facilitating the instant and virtually free global transfer of funds, Pollak said. Early adoption is already evident, with approximately $48 million in payment volume having flowed through X402 to date, about 95% of which occurred on Base, the Ethereum layer-2 network founded by Pollak and incubated by Coinbase. The ecosystem is expanding rapidly, with integrations spanning AI providers, data platforms, and travel services that agents can directly access. Pollak’s long-term vision is to create an open marketplace where agents can programmatically access services without encountering paywalls or requiring human intervention. “The goal is for agents to be able to operate freely,” he described, envisioning a system where software can seamlessly discover, purchase, and utilize digital services in real-time. While fully autonomous ‘zero-human’ businesses are beginning to emerge, Pollak believes the more significant near-term impact will come from individuals augmenting themselves with AI. “Top performers are now leveraging agents to further enhance their performance,” he said, describing workflows powered by multiple parallel AI systems. For cryptocurrency, the broader challenge remains adoption. Pollak argued that the solution lies not in better marketing, but in making crypto invisible to the user. “It will become much easier to promote crypto when people don’t need to be told about it; they will simply experience it,” he said.