Agentic Commerce Is Coming—Will the Legal System Be Ready?

**Alan Kaplinsky** (0:07)
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So today, we're going to be discussing what I consider to be an absolutely fascinating and a very timely paper entitled Agentic Commerce Needs Legal Infrastructure and the Courts Are Coming. And it's written by Bridget McCormack and David Hoffman. And it was published on April 22nd of this year. And it's available to everybody on AAA's website. That's the American Arbitration Association. And in just a couple of minutes, you'll find out why it's there. So, the article addresses a subject that's rapidly moving from theory to reality. The increasing use of autonomous AI agents to conduct commercial transactions with little or no human involvement. Often referred to as agentic AI.
The authors argue that while enormous investments are being made in agentic commerce, far less attention is being paid to the legal infrastructure that's necessary to support it. As a result of that, they predict the courts, regulators and litigants will soon be grappling with disputes generated by machine-scale transactions under legal doctrines originally designed for human actors and not for machines that act autonomously. Our podcast today is closely related to a podcast show we released on May 21 of this year entitled, AI Liability Comes Into Focus. And it was a conversation with Mark Geistfeld, the reporter on ALI's, American Law Institute's Civil Liability Principles Project. My discussion with Mark explored one of the most consequential emerging legal issues in the AI era. And that is how traditional tort law doctrines, including duty, reasonable care, causation, foreseeability, product liability, and allocation of responsibility should apply to AI systems. On our podcast today, we are very fortunate to be joined by the authors of the paper themselves. First, it's my pleasure to introduce to you Bridget McCormack. Bridget is president and CEO of the American Arbitration Association–International Centre for Dispute Resolution. I think from now on, I'll just refer to that as AAA. At least that's how I've always known it. Bridget is leading the organization's global mission to expand access to fair, efficient dispute resolution through innovation and technology.
Bridget is a nationally recognized leader on AI and legal innovation. She brings a forward-looking vision focused on human-centered design, accountability, and trust in the rule of law. Before joining AAA, she served as Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, where she pioneered statewide online dispute resolution and technology-driven reforms to improve access to justice. A very warm welcome to you, Bridget.

**Bridget McCormack** (6:00)
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

**Alan Kaplinsky** (6:02)
Okay. And our next guest is a repeat guest. As he's been on one other podcast show with us not too, too long ago. And that is David Hoffman, who is the co-author with Bridget of the article.
David is the William A. Schneider Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, and one of the country's leading scholars on contract law.
David, as I said, has previously been a guest on our show. So David, welcome back. Delighted to have you back on our program.

**David Hoffman** (6:45)
Great to be back. Thanks. Looking forward to our conversation.

**Alan Kaplinsky** (6:48)
Okay. Well, I have a, I found your article very interesting, although it's, it's very comprehensible and it's very short, which is good, unlike most law review articles that are very, very long. So I've got, we're going to do some level setting here, Bridget. And my opening question is that for listeners who may be hearing for the first time, what exactly is agentic commerce and why do you believe it's arriving faster than many lawyers and business leaders appreciate?