The future is agentic.

A message from our founders

When we founded Commerce Layer in 2017, ecommerce platforms were still debating whether APIs were necessary. Most vendors treated them as optional add-ons, nice-to-have features for the technically adventurous. We saw things differently. We believed the future of commerce would be headless, completely decoupling the presentation layer from business logic. So we built Commerce Layer API-first from day one.

Our early customers were pioneers. They wanted to build better, faster ecommerce websites and be ready to sell on channels that hadn't been invented yet. They needed infrastructure that could power any frontend, anywhere. Over the years, we've created APIs for everything commerce to support them as best as possible. Always by keeping our API-first vision and focusing on the transactional functionality of commerce. No shortcuts, no compromises.

Then the market evolved, and headless became table stakes. The question shifted from headless to composable. Businesses wanted to mix and match best-of-breed services, creating their perfect commerce stack. Our architecture was ready. We had built Commerce Layer as the perfect commerce engine for composable architecture. A platform that is interoperable by design. Our customers could use us to transform any customer experience into a shoppable moment, with unparalleled flexibility and simple API design. This balance between flexibility and simplicity has become our strength.

Today, we're witnessing the next evolution: the rise of agentic commerce. AI agents are becoming autonomous buyers and sellers, negotiating deals at machine speed. They don't browse websites; they consume APIs. They don't read product descriptions; they parse structured data. They don't click checkout buttons; they execute transactions programmatically. And suddenly, every architectural decision we've made over the past years makes perfect sense.

The same APIs that power headless websites now serve AI agents. The same composable services that enable omnichannel experiences now enable agent-to-agent interactions. The same real-time inventory system that synchronizes online and in-store stock now helps agents make split-second purchasing decisions. We didn't predict ChatGPT or the Model Context Protocol, but we built for a world where commerce would be increasingly automated and programmable. That world has arrived.

Commerce Layer remains what it's always been: a unified commerce engine that powers any transaction, anywhere. You can use us to run your ecommerce website, process in-store purchases, enable mobile shopping, and now, sell to AI agents. It's all the same platform, the same inventory, the same orders. Whether your customer is a human clicking "buy now" or an AI agent calling our API, Commerce Layer handles it seamlessly.

In the near future, our merchants will see AI-driven orders in their dashboards. These orders will look identical to any other, because to our system, they are. An order is an order, whether placed by a person in Tokyo browsing on their phone or an AI agent in San Francisco negotiating through the A2A protocol. This isn't science fiction; it's happening today.

Nevertheless, we're not abandoning traditional commerce for some AI-only future. Humans will continue shopping online and in stores for years to come. But we're preparing our merchants for a world where an increasing percentage of transactions happen between machines. A world where your API is your storefront, your data quality determines your visibility, and your ability to serve both human and AI customers defines your success.

The journey from headless to composable to AI-first isn't really three separate evolutions. It's one continuous transformation toward more flexible, programmable, intelligent commerce. Every step has prepared us for the next. Every architectural choice has compounded in value. And every merchant who joined us along the way is now positioned to lead in the agentic economy.

The future of commerce isn't about choosing between human and AI customers. It's about serving both, seamlessly, through infrastructure that adapts to however commerce evolves next. That's what we've built. That's what we're continuing to build. And that's why we're more excited about Commerce Layer's future than ever before.

Welcome to the AI-first era. Your infrastructure is ready.

Founders of Commerce Layer