The Missing Piece in Agentic AI: Payments

Name: The Missing Piece in Agentic AI: Payments
Start: 2026-07-30T16:00:00.000Z
End: 2026-07-30T19:00:00.000Z
Location: AI Campus Berlin

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While everyone is talking about what AI agents can do. Nobody is talking about how they pay for it.

AI agents are already buying and accessing data on behalf of businesses and people. The infrastructure underneath is being built right now, across every major market. Companies providing valuable content, data, and services are powering the AI economy without a reliable way to get paid for it. That is the gap.

Europe is well placed to close it. The regulatory framework is in place. The businesses are here. The technical talent is here. What is missing is the infrastructure that connects them: payment rails that are licensed, regulated, and built to European standards.

This is where those pieces come together and the work starts.

Speakers

Sven Wagenknecht is editor-in-chief and co-founder of BTC-ECHO, the highest-coverage medium on the topic of blockchain in the German-speaking region. In his role, he regularly comments on the socio- and macroeconomic impact of decentralized technologies. In addition, he advises public institutions (including the United Nations) on individual blockchain initiatives and is a board member of the blockchain working group of the digital association Bitkom.

Peter Grosskopf is CTO & COO of AllUnity, where he oversees technology strategy and operations. Before joining AllUnity, he co-founded Unstoppable Finance GmbH and served as its CTO, leading development of the self-hosted wallet app Ultimate (later acquired by Jupiter in 2024) and Iron (acquired by MoonPay). Earlier in his career, he co-founded Solarisbank, serving as CTO and Managing Director, and subsequently held the role of CTO at Börse Stuttgart Digital Exchange, contributing to innovation in digital banking. He also sits on the Digital Advisory Board of the German Federal Ministry of Finance.

Thomas Mehlkopf, Head of Treasury & Working Capital Mgmt CoE, SAP SE, leads SAP’s Working Capital Management and Treasury Center of Excellence, driving innovative, customer-centric finance solutions for CFOs & Treasurers worldwide. He has been in various Finance and Consulting roles at SAP and KPMG in the past helping customers and SAP to drive its own Finance transformation.

Johannes Rupp, Managing Partner & Host, Schwitzer’s Hotel am Park. After gaining experience at renowned hotels in Germany and Switzerland, Johannes Rupp took over the leadership of Schwitzer’s Hotel am Park in 2014. Since then, he has continuously evolved the family owned business with passion, entrepreneurial vision, and a deep understanding of his guests’ needs. He is known for recognizing emerging trends early and translating them into practical innovation with sound judgment. Johannes also serves on the board of the Karlsruhe chapter of DEHOGA Baden-Württemberg and on the board of FHG e.V.

Jens Joseph Mannanal, is Co-Founder and CEO of Bluerails, building the discovery to settlement stack for agentic commerce, starting with independent hotels in the DACH region. Before Bluerails, he worked at GetYourGuide and Bain & Company, and cofounded Passionfroot, an AI-native operating system for creator marketing, and the Indo-German Young Leaders Forum.

Ashwin Kumar, Co-Founder of Bluerails, working alongside Jens to build the discovery to settlement stack that helps independent hotels get found, booked, and paid by AI agents. Before Bluerails, he worked at Delivery Hero and was a founding engineer at Payrails.

Matteo Gamba is a fintech and payments leader with 15+ years of experience building global commerce infrastructure. Previously, as Head of Product, Payments & Fraud at Wayfair, he led the product teams responsible for payments infrastructure supporting a $14B+ e-commerce business and contributed to Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), helping shape the foundations for agentic commerce and AI-driven payments. He held earlier product roles at Wise and fintech companies and specializes in payments orchestration, tokenization, fraud prevention, and the evolution of commerce in the age of AI agents.

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