PayPal's checkout is inside Glance, an AI shopping agent on 60 million devices, but volume waits until 2028
PayPal became the only native checkout inside Glance, an AI shopping agent on more than 60 million US devices, days before its first earnings report with no buyout bid underneath. The agentic position is right and nearly free; on the CEO's own timeline the volume arrives in 2028.
Richard Tang · 3 min read
PayPal−0.23% — PayPal, down 0.23 percent today is now the only native checkout inside Glance, an InMobi-backed AI shopping agent embedded on more than 60 million American phones and TVs, under a deal announced on October 15 with no financial terms disclosed 16. The position is right, and it cost almost nothing. It also earns almost nothing for years on the chief executive's own timeline 2, which makes Monday's third-quarter report a verdict on the old business, not the new button.
The checkout button now follows the traffic
A Glance shopper uploads one photo, has an AI avatar try the clothes on, builds a cart and pays without leaving the app 1. PayPal's end is a pair of services, Agent Ready and Store Sync: a single merchant integration that syncs a catalog and takes payment across Copilot, Perplexity$20B — Perplexity, private, latest valuation $20B, Google and now Glance 3. Checkout already runs inside ChatGPT 4. When discovery and purchase collapse into one agent screen, the payment button follows the traffic, and whoever owns the button keeps the margin. That link in the chain is built.
The rails exist, the shoppers do not
Against those embedded devices, Glance's own site counts 13 million active mobile users, and its US shopping app launched this year 5. Lores, running PayPal since March, was blunter at the Money 20/20 fintech conference: commerce done through agents stays "relatively small" through 2027, with no meaningful volumes until 2028 2. The bottleneck has moved from payment rails, which exist, to shopper behavior, which does not.
The old business has to carry the wait
Second-quarter revenue rose 5% to $8.68 billion 4. Transaction margin dollars, PayPal's profit after processing costs, grew 1%, to $3.9 billion 4. Operating income has now fallen year over year for two straight quarters 7. Lores is stripping management layers under a restructuring reported in May to cut about 20% of the workforce over three years, and says AI lets PayPal do "in the next 18 months" what once took three or four years 2.
Revenue kept climbing while operating profit turned down
- Revenue
- Operating income
Data
| Revenue | Operating income | |
|---|---|---|
| Q2 '24 | $7.89B | $1.33B |
| Q3 '24 | $7.85B | $1.39B |
| Q4 '24 | $8.37B | $1.44B |
| Q1 '25 | $7.79B | $1.53B |
| Q2 '25 | $8.29B | $1.5B |
| Q3 '25 | $8.42B | $1.52B |
| Q4 '25 | $8.68B | $1.51B |
| Q1 '26 | $8.35B | $1.49B |
| Q2 '26 | $8.68B | $1.43B |
Monday's report has no floor under it
The board judged a $60.50-a-share offer from Stripe and Advent International, about $53 billion with Block reported as an equity partner, inadequate; the suitors walked in August 4. The stock fell to $54 that day and has recovered to $57 4. That is 10.3 times forward earnings, with the average analyst target sitting at the price 4.
A $1,000 stake from August 2021 was worth $200 by September, the worst of 172 companies tracked, derated for a growth premium that vanished rather than for collapsing payments 8. Management raised the full-year guide to about $15.6 billion in transaction margin dollars 4; the sell case we covered two weeks ago still frames the bear argument.
The number that decides Monday is whether transaction margin dollars finally grow faster than revenue.
Cheap position, distant proof
PayPal deserves credit for planting its flag where shopping is going, nearly for free. But the button was the easy hop. The volume is the gap, and whoever turns one into the other deserves the reward. That proof is later, not Monday.
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