The end of ads? AI agents are about to change how we buy
The end of ads? AI agents are about to change how we buy  
Podcast: a16z crypto show
Published On: Mon Apr 27 2026
Description: Agents can now do almost anything a human can do with a computer. So what happens when they start spending money on your behalf? Sam Ragsdale (founder and CEO of Merit Systems, a startup building infrastructure for the agentic economy) joins a16z crypto's Eddy Lazzarin, Noah Levine, and Robert Hackett on the open agentic commerce stack, and why the internet's business model is about to get rewired. 00:00 – Intro  01:33 – Two flavors of agentic commerce  04:30 – What is an agent, actually?  12:57 – The headless merchant thesis  17:17 – What happens to existing friction?  24:45 – The economic contract of the web is broken  27:46 – Will agents get distracted by ads?  35:152– Stablecoins vs. credit cards  41:54 – Sam's bear case on interchange  49:11 – The killer app for agentic commerce   Sam Ragsdale on X: /samrags_  Eddy Lazzarin on X: /eddylazzarin  Noah Levine on X: /nlevine19  Robert Hackett on X: /rhackett    Follow a16z crypto: /a16zcrypto  Subscribe for more news and updates: a16zcrypto.substack.com Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.