
Who manages the agents?
Multi-agent systems went from 6% to 25% in a single quarter. Once agents work with each other, who can say why something went wrong, or right?

The read
Visa launches Agentic Ready program in UAE to advance AI-driven commerceEconomy Middle East · Reporting a Visa release of 20 May 2026
Nearly 60% of UAE businesses are already exploring agentic commerce, and banks here are testing payments initiated by AI agents inside a controlled environment, under Visa's new Agentic Ready programme.
I keep saying agents only get real when they touch money. An agent that can browse is a demo. An agent that can pay is infrastructure, and the UAE tends to build infrastructure in the right order: controlled testing first, scale after.
Worth five minutes if you sell anything online in this region, or you want to see what agents in the workforce actually look like once payments are involved.
The question I would sit with
If a customer’s agent arrived at your checkout tomorrow, would your business recognise it, or block it?
Alex Collins
Co-founder & COO of RAI Digital, a consulting venture builder · Ex-EY Consulting Partner · Writing on agentic AI, venture building, logistics platforms and transformation leadership.
One honest read every fortnight on what agentic AI is doing to consulting, and what to do about it. For people moving from advice to outcomes, rebuilding a firm, or done buying decks. No hype, no fluff.

Multi-agent systems went from 6% to 25% in a single quarter. Once agents work with each other, who can say why something went wrong, or right?

Forward-deployed engineering is a new name for an old question: when the people who built it leave, who takes over?

Everyone is counting AI agents, and far fewer organisations can say which ones exist, what each one can access and what it did yesterday.