"You Now Have Two Customers: The Human and Their Agent"

Raja Rajamannar, Senior Fellow at Mastercard, joins CoinDesk’s Sam Ewen for a conversation that is equal parts blockchain brand masterclass and roadmap for what marketing looks like when agents start making the decisions. Raja makes the case that agentic commerce doesn't simplify the marketer's job, it doubles it because now you have to win over the human and their agent, and the criteria for each are completely different. - Timecodes: 0:00 – Rethinking sales: humans vs. AI agents 2:17 – Crypto's branding problem 5:47 – Preserving value and remittances as use cases 7:53 – Cash to credit cards: an early parallel to crypto 14:31 – Money, emotion, and the Mastercard brand journey 17:48 – Experiential marketing over traditional ads 19:00 – Mastercard-flavored macarons and sensory branding 20:17 – The rise of agentic commerce 24:38 – Marketing to both humans and their AI agents 29:20 – Building empathy into AI transactions - From our sponsors: This episode is brought to you by RealFi, a smarter stablecoin, backed by real-world assets. Find out more at realfi.co. - Ledn provides a secure and transparent way to access liquidity while maintaining your bitcoin holdings. Perfect 8 year track record of keeping clients assets safe. Don't sell your bitcoin. Get a bitcoin-backed loan. Check out your rate by using their loan calculator at ledn.io - JPEG Trading is a global proprietary trading firm specializing in cryptocurrency and decentralized finance markets. From market structure and liquidity provision to quantitative trading strategies, JPEG Trading operates across the full spectrum of blockchain-based assets. Follow @jpegtrading on X to stay ahead of the latest developments in digital asset markets: https://x.com/jpegtrading - #digitalfinance #finance #bitcoin Subscribe to CoinDesk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/CoinDesk?sub_confirmation=1 CoinDesk is the leading digital media, events and information services company for the crypto asset and blockchain technology community. Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/coindesk LinkedIn: https://www.din.com/company/coindesk Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coindesk Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoinDesk Newsletters: https://www.coindesk.com/newsletters CoinDesk Podcast Network: https://open.spotify.com/show/2jyIhkvAQhed8AWDZiPpSP Public Keys: https://open.spotify.com/show/1rqYzRV10nfKfoTpFXZhTE Markets Daily Crypto Roundup: https://open.spotify.com/show/7sDXM8BlxsUqzL2IqmLqwE The Policy Protocol: https://open.spotify.com/show/3Fh8ffulAWcCqMu0uVuwoj