The Architects of Our New World: How Visa, Google, and Walmart Are Building the Agentic Economy
Frequently Asked Questions (The Executive Summary)
Who are the "Architects of Our New World"?
Visa, Google, and Walmart. The article reframes them not as siloed competitors in payments, search, and retail, but as the primary builders of three distinct, competing ecosystems for the coming agentic economy.
How are their visions for the agentic economy different?
● Visa aims to be the "Universal Translator," owning the foundational trust and verification layer for all AI agent transactions.
● Google is building the "Universal Brain," creating the most intelligent and knowledgeable AI agent by leveraging its vast product and user data.
● Walmart is creating the "Universal Supply Chain," dominating the physical fulfillment of AI-driven purchases through its logistics mastery.
What is the strategic implication for other business leaders?
Leaders must recognize that these competing ecosystems are the new business landscape. The key strategic decision is no longer just how to compete, but which of these emerging "Walled Gardens" their business model is best suited to operate within, align with, or defend against.
The agentic economy is not being built in a secret lab by unknown actors. It is being constructed in plain sight, brick by digital brick, by the very companies that already shape our daily lives. To the strategist looking through an old map, Visa, Google, and Walmart are giants in their respective, separate domains: payments, search, and retail. This view is now dangerously obsolete.
These companies are no longer just players in their fields; they are the primary architects of three distinct, competing visions for the future of commerce. Each is laying a foundational layer for the Algorithmic Shopper, racing to build the "Walled Garden" where our AI agents will live, think, and transact. Understanding their deep strategies is not just an analysis of the competition; it is a preview of the world your business must prepare to inhabit.
Architect 1: Visa – The Universal Translator of Trust
Visa’s strategy is not about credit cards; it’s about owning the very concept of secure, verifiable identity and exchange. With a network spanning millions of merchants and billions of consumers, Visa has constructed the planet's most ubiquitous financial infrastructure. In the agentic age, this infrastructure becomes the ultimate translation layer for trust.
An Algorithmic Shopper needs to verify three things before any transaction: the identity of the merchant, the legitimacy of the request, and the security of the payment. Visa is positioned to be the single, universal answer to all three. Their vision is not to build the AI agent itself, but to become the indispensable, foundational protocol that all other agents must use to transact safely. They are not building a garden; they are building the bedrock on which all gardens must be built, ensuring they get a toll from every transaction, regardless of which agent wins.
Architect 2: Google – The Universal Brain
Google's strategy is not about search; it’s about knowledge. For two decades, it has been meticulously constructing the world's most comprehensive "product graph"—a near-sentient understanding of every item, service, and human intention in existence. This, combined with its hardware ecosystem (Pixel, Nest) and its mastery of conversational AI, gives Google the unique ability to build the smartest and most context-aware agents.
Google’s vision is to have your Algorithmic Shopper be an extension of its universal brain. It won't just know what you want; it will understand why you want it, predicting your needs before you do. It will compare every product across every retailer on the open web, armed with more data than any other system. Google isn’t just building an agent; it’s building a digital god of commerce, omniscient and omnipresent, and offering it to you as a personal assistant.
Architect 3: Walmart – The Universal Supply Chain
Walmart’s strategy is not about retail; it's about the laws of physics. While others focus on the digital realm, Walmart has achieved an unparalleled mastery of physical space, logistics, and supply chain efficiency. From its massive purchasing power to its nationwide network of stores-as-fulfillment-centers and its Spark delivery platform, Walmart controls the entire journey from factory to doorstep.
Walmart’s vision is brutally pragmatic. An Algorithmic Shopper, in its quest for optimal efficiency, will inevitably conclude that the most reliable and cost-effective way to get a physical product is through the Walmart machine. They are building an agent whose primary advantage is not its intelligence, but its direct, native connection to the world’s most efficient physical supply chain. Walmart is betting that in the end, the agent that can actually get the product to your door cheapest and fastest will win.
The battle for the agentic economy is a three-front war between these architectural visions—a universal trust network, a universal intelligence, and a universal physical machine. For every other leader, the strategic imperative is to stop thinking about these companies as separate entities and start seeing their emerging ecosystems as the new operating environments. Your business model will need to align with, plug into, or defend against these new realities. The architects are laying the foundation now. It's time to decide where you will build.
This article presents a high-level strategic overview (working paper) intended for a business audience and is based on ongoing research. A more formal, academic treatment of these concepts, including a full literature review and methodology, is being developed for peer-reviewed publication. The foundational working papers can be found on my SSRN author page. These topics will be fully explored in my forthcoming book ‘The Algorithmic Shopper’ (working title).
