Why AI Agents Still Won't Pay for Anything — Jan Curn, Apify
x402, AP2, ACP, MPP, TAP, UCP: every big fintech and payments company now has an agent payment standard, but real volume is close to zero.
Jan Curn, founder of Apify, walks the agent payment funnel (need, setup, discovery, purchase) to show where it breaks. He covers why API keys still win, why crypto is well placed, the trust problem in finding services, and how pay-per-use billing finally landed. Chapters: - 00:00 The agent payments boom - 02:57 Every protocol, from x402 to AP2 - 05:47 Why crypto fits agent payments - 07:38 Nobody's using them. Why? - 08:36 The agent payment funnel - 09:37 Need: competing with API keys - 12:19 Setup: wallets are still hard - 13:19 Discovery: who can an agent trust? - 16:06 Buying: pay-per-use and batch settlement - 19:41 What's next Jan Curn — X: https://x.com/jancurn | https://apify.com Join us in SF for the second annual AIE CODE summit: https://aie.codes our last flagship summit of 2026. Applications live now!
The text is the source's own description of its publication. The content belongs to AI Engineer.
More from AI Engineer
Inside Arca's Long-Horizon Agents That Run the Business - Aman Singh, Arca
AI Engineer 23 Oct
Real AI Agent Attacks and What Would Have Stopped Them — Andrey Rybka, Bloomberg
AI Engineer 23 Oct
Outside of tech there has been no financial payoff to US companies for using AI, now viewed as a margin-hurting cost center, as VC-backed firms burn more tokens
Techmeme 4 h ago
Source: Replit recently moved most AI spend from Anthropic to OpenAI, which gave 30%+ off in a deal worth $100M+/year, after Anthropic discontinued its discount
Techmeme 6 h ago