Auditing the agent economy: what the forecasts actually say

Two market research firms forecast rapid growth in the agentic AI market by 2030 but differ significantly on its size due to varying definitions. While growth rates align near 46%, estimates range from $24.5 billion to $52.62 billion, reflecting differing scopes of enterprise versus general agent software. Spending on AI agents spans data, execution, identity, and payments, with payments seeing notable recent developments like Stripe's Machine Payments Protocol and Mastercard's Agent Pay for 202