EP. 244 - Getting Started with Agentic Payments on Crossmint

[laughs]

Uh, I, I suppose, um, from that standpoint, like, um, we know a lot of, a lot of people, um, probably people like you and I and others watching today, uh, we, we know a lot of agentic, uh, products are heavily, um, developer oriented and-

Yeah

... um, I think that's just like the near term opportunity and, and, and it's what people are, are paying for now.

But, um, a lot of people don't realize that, um, agents will also eventually start to spend online and, and, um, kind of do, uh, be, be, um, extensions of ourselves.

Yeah.

And, um, I gue- I guess for the person watching today that doesn't kind of realize that, um, did you wanna kind of give a overview of, um, what your perspective is of that and, um, whether-

Yeah

... or not we should be giving agents our, our credit card to, to spend our, our money.

[laughs] Yeah.

So I'll, I'll talk a little bit about like maybe AI a- a- as a journey, 'cause I think that the moment that like took us from thinking about LLMs as a chatbot to really thinking about agents was, of course, OpenClaw late last year.

Um, and I remember getting in- into OpenClaw and starting to build my own agent, and I'm a relatively tech-forward person, but man, I was like, "I'm not a dev.

I, I have no interest in the DevOps." [laughs] Like, and I started, you know, doing, you know, creating my own skills, and then you start seeing other skills libraries, and it was like, it didn't take me very long for me to just say, "I would love for somebody to make me an agent with a thousand skills built into it that are already really good and just come along and give that to me." And, you know, I, I've used Everything AI, used Hermes, and that was like a step change.

But I think that obviously like the new wave of consumer assistance is like finally hitting that level where- Maybe it's this version, maybe it's like one more iteration, but like we're getting closer and closer to actually crossing the chasm.

And the, um, it's really funny, we've seen, we, you know, here at Crossmint, we've seen some data.

Many of the early OpenClaw people, um, were, [clears throat] you know, iterating on the edge and were playing it fast and loose, and basically said, "Sure, I'll put my...

I'll give, I'll give my OpenClaw, uh, access to my credit card, and I'll just save the card number someplace that I think is relatively secure." [chuckles] Um, there were quite a bit of, there was quite a bit of credit card leakage in that world.

Um, that is maybe fine.

You know, if you wanna take on that risk as an individual, that's okay.

But like if you're trying to offer an agentic service to somebody else, there's a reason we have, you know, we have some compliance and regulations around how you should handle those card numbers.

So, um, a- you know, as the, the, er, in the earliest innings, everyone sort of kinda assumed, yeah, at some point, agents will probably pay for things.

But as soon as Muse and Instinct came out, like really back to back, and, and even in those, like that first week, one of the first things that Muse suggested gave you three things.

It was like, "Let me check your email.

Let me do X.

Let me buy you something." It was like, "Oh my God, here's the inflection point." And we went from like, agents will probably buy something to one day to, "Oh, of course, agents are going to shop for us." And, uh, the last like just kind of high level observation I'll give, um, just to get things, you know, started and get the ball rolling here is, um, I see a lot of people talk about, like, what is the thing that agents are gonna buy? And there's a lot of like debating and arguing on Twitter.

[laughs]

Uh, I, I suppose, um, from that standpoint, like, um, we know a lot of, a lot of people, um, probably people like you and I and others watching today, uh, we, we know a lot of agentic, uh, products are heavily, um, developer oriented and-

Yeah

... um, I think that's just like the near term opportunity and, and, and it's what people are, are paying for now.

But, um, a lot of people don't realize that, um, agents will also eventually start to spend online and, and, um, kind of do, uh, be, be, um, extensions of ourselves.

Yeah.

And, um, I gue- I guess for the person watching today that doesn't kind of realize that, um, did you wanna kind of give a overview of, um, what your perspective is of that and, um, whether-

Yeah

... or not we should be giving agents our, our credit card to, to spend our, our money.

[laughs] Yeah.

So I'll, I'll talk a little bit about like maybe AI a- a- as a journey, 'cause I think that the moment that like took us from thinking about LLMs as a chatbot to really thinking about agents was, of course, OpenClaw late last year.

Um, and I remember getting in- into OpenClaw and starting to build my own agent, and I'm a relatively tech-forward person, but man, I was like, "I'm not a dev.

I, I have no interest in the DevOps." [laughs] Like, and I started, you know, doing, you know, creating my own skills, and then you start seeing other skills libraries, and it was like, it didn't take me very long for me to just say, "I would love for somebody to make me an agent with a thousand skills built into it that are already really good and just come along and give that to me." And, you know, I, I've used Everything AI, used Hermes, and that was like a step change.

But I think that obviously like the new wave of consumer assistance is like finally hitting that level where- Maybe it's this version, maybe it's like one more iteration, but like we're getting closer and closer to actually crossing the chasm.

And the, um, it's really funny, we've seen, we, you know, here at Crossmint, we've seen some data.

Many of the early OpenClaw people, um, were, [clears throat] you know, iterating on the edge and were playing it fast and loose, and basically said, "Sure, I'll put my...

I'll give, I'll give my OpenClaw, uh, access to my credit card, and I'll just save the card number someplace that I think is relatively secure." [chuckles] Um, there were quite a bit of, there was quite a bit of credit card leakage in that world.

Um, that is maybe fine.

You know, if you wanna take on that risk as an individual, that's okay.

But like if you're trying to offer an agentic service to somebody else, there's a reason we have, you know, we have some compliance and regulations around how you should handle those card numbers.

So, um, a- you know, as the, the, er, in the earliest innings, everyone sort of kinda assumed, yeah, at some point, agents will probably pay for things.

But as soon as Muse and Instinct came out, like really back to back, and, and even in those, like that first week, one of the first things that Muse suggested gave you three things.

It was like, "Let me check your email.

Let me do X.

Let me buy you something." It was like, "Oh my God, here's the inflection point." And we went from like, agents will probably buy something to one day to, "Oh, of course, agents are going to shop for us." And, uh, the last like just kind of high level observation I'll give, um, just to get things, you know, started and get the ball rolling here is, um, I see a lot of people talk about, like, what is the thing that agents are gonna buy? And there's a lot of like debating and arguing on Twitter.