ScenarioAutonomous agent institutions and economic coordinationPart of The agent workforce

Agent-to-Agent Commerce Manager

Also called Machine Customer Manager

An Agent-to-Agent Commerce Manager would run sales and purchasing where the buyer or seller is an AI agent. It depends on how AI develops, and it would matter only if companies really delegate buying authority to agents.

What they do

The work would centre on selling to, and buying through, software agents acting for other organisations. They would design pricing that an agent can read and compare through an API. They would set the terms an agent may negotiate within, and the limits it may not cross. They would watch how counterparty agents behave, spot odd patterns such as probing or collusion, and tune offers in response. They would agree who is accountable when an agent-made deal goes wrong, and work with legal, finance, security and engineering to keep those rules enforceable.

What a strong hire delivers

In the first months, a strong hire would map which sales and purchasing flows could safely be handled by agents and which need a person. They would produce a clear pricing and negotiation policy with defined limits, a monitoring routine for agent counterparties, and an escalation path for disputes. They would also run a small, bounded pilot and report plainly on what it showed.

How you can tell they are good

Ask them to walk through a pricing or negotiation scheme they designed, and where it could be gamed by an automated counterparty. A strong candidate reasons in terms of incentives and failure cases, not features. Ask how they would set an agent's authority limit and who answers for a bad deal. Be wary of anyone who treats agent buyers as just faster humans.

Why it is hard to fill

If this role emerged, the people would be scarce because nobody has done it at scale. Titles would not match, and candidates would mix commercial instinct with game theory, identity and governance. Most commercial managers lack the technical and strategic depth. Most technical people lack the commercial judgement. Employers would struggle to know what good looks like, so we would expect long searches.

Where to find them

Today the closest people come from ecommerce, pricing and API product teams at retail businesses and B2B platforms. Others come from economics and mechanism design, digital identity, and multi-agent systems research. Some come from risk and governance functions that already deal with delegated authority. The best would combine a commercial track record with real experience of automated counterparties.

Interview questions for an Agent-to-Agent Commerce Manager

  1. Tell us about a pricing or marketplace mechanism you designed. How did you find out where it could be exploited?

    A strong answer describes real testing, adversarial thinking and what changed as a result. Look for specific incentives and failure cases. Worry if they only describe the design and never how it was stress-tested.

  2. How would you decide how much buying or selling authority an agent should hold?

    Good answers tie limits to value at risk, reversibility, reliability evidence and monitoring. They mention staged expansion. Worry about answers that rely on trust in the model or give a single fixed limit for everything.

4 more questions, with what a strong answer covers, are in the Role Kit.

Job description you can post

We are building how we sell to, and buy from, customers and suppliers that increasingly act through software agents. We need someone to set the commercial rules, run the pilots and keep accountability clear. You would work across commercial, engineering, legal and risk teams.

What you will do

  • Design pricing and offers that automated counterparties can read and act on through our APIs
  • Define negotiation limits and the authority our own agents may hold
  • Monitor agent counterparties for unusual or manipulative behaviour
  • Run bounded pilots and report clearly on results
  • Agree dispute and escalation routes with legal, finance and security
  • Work with engineering on protocols, logging and identity checks

What you will bring

  • Demonstrated work designing pricing, marketplace or negotiation mechanisms
  • Experience with API-led commerce or integrations with automated partners
  • Sound grasp of incentives and game theory applied to real commercial problems
  • Evidence of managing risk around delegated authority
  • Ability to explain technical trade-offs to commercial and legal colleagues
  • Clear written judgement on when to automate and when to keep a person involved

Nice to have

  • Background in multi-agent systems or economics research
  • Experience with digital identity or credentialing
  • Work on commercial governance or compliance

Free to use and adapt. If it saves you time, a link back to this page is appreciated.

Depends on a scenario

Broad reliable autonomous delegation

What AI would need to do
Systems complete diverse consequential tasks with sustained reliability beyond existing narrow deployments.
What organisations would need to decide
Organisations explicitly delegate bounded authority and establish enforceable accountability.
What would rule it out
Persistent reliability limits or lack of useful cost advantage prevents broad delegation.

We give no date. The role becomes real if both conditions hold.

Skills that matter

  • Decision theory and game theoryWorkingAnalyse choices, incentives and strategic interactions
  • Institutional and international coordinationWorkingAlign actors and processes across jurisdictions
  • AI risk managementWorkingIdentify, assess, treat and monitor AI risks
  • Frontier scenario analysisWorkingExplore conditional outcomes without claiming predictions

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How we wrote this

Role definitions are our own editorial work, checked against occupational classifications, standards, research and employer pages. Titles vary by company, and this is a description of the work, not a job advert. Scenario roles describe responsibilities that depend on stated conditions; they are not forecasts.

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