Shopping as we know it is about to change – again. The era of agentic commerce is dawning, where AI agents shop, compare, and buy on our behalf. Fueled by generative AI, real-time data, and seamless payment integration, these digital “assistants” are evolving from simple chatbots into autonomous consumers.
The drivers are clear: advances in large language models, the integration of payment systems like PayPal and Venmo within ChatGPT, and growing consumer comfort with automation. Retailers, meanwhile, face both opportunity and existential threat as control over the customer journey begins to shift.
To understand what’s next, let’s explore five key trends reshaping the future of retail and commerce in the age of AI agents.
1. From Search to Conversation: Shopping Becomes Dialogic
Consumers are moving from search bars to conversations. Walmart’s recent partnership with OpenAI epitomises this shift: shoppers can now ask ChatGPT to “plan a taco dinner” or “restock pantry essentials,” receive curated suggestions, and check out – all within the chat.
Why it matters: Search-based discovery is giving way to contextual dialogue, making shopping more intuitive and personalised. Instead of typing keywords, consumers describe goals or moods and AI agents translate that into purchases.
Implications: Retailers must now optimise for AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) visibility rather than SEO. The “storefront” of the future may not be a website at all, but a conversation inside an AI ecosystem.
What to do: Brands should develop “agent-friendly” data schemas and product metadata so their items can be discovered, compared, and purchased via conversational agents.
2. The New Buyer Is a Bot: Agentic Commerce Arrives
Agentic commerce describes a world where AI agents act as autonomous shoppers – buying groceries, managing loyalty points, and even negotiating prices.
Why it matters: Instead of manually browsing and comparing, users will set rules (“buy detergent when it’s 20% off” or “reorder coffee every three weeks”), and agents will execute these automatically. Research shows that most consumers are interested in AI tools that can make purchases when prices drop.
Implications: Shopping becomes anticipatory rather than reactive. But as agents gain autonomy, questions of liability, consent, and trust loom large. For instance, who’s responsible if your AI buys something you didn’t intend to or don’t want?
What to do: Retailers should pilot transparent AI-agent interfaces that let customers review, approve, or override agent decisions to maintain confidence and control.
3. The Frictionless Checkout: Payments Go Invisible
PayPal’s integration with ChatGPT represents a crucial step toward invisible commerce – a world where transactions happen without leaving the conversation. Using OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol, PayPal now allows direct in-chat payments and merchant listings without extra integration work.
Why it matters: Payments are no longer the end of the funnel – they’re built into the interaction. This eliminates friction and allows “chat-to-checkout” in seconds.
Implications: Traditional payment gateways and checkout pages may fade. Trust, fraud prevention, and dispute resolution will instead be embedded directly in conversational layers.
What to do: Businesses should align with emerging open protocols to make their products agent-accessible and compatible with cross-platform AI ecosystems.
4. AI-Powered Customer Experience: The Age of Anticipation
The customer experience is evolving from reactive to predictive and proactive. McKinsey’s “Next Best Experience” model shows that AI-powered personalisation can boost satisfaction by up to 20% and reduce service costs by 30%. These systems detect when a customer needs help before they even ask.
Why it matters: The next frontier isn’t personalisation at scale; it’s personalisation in real time, driven by data and generative content. Agentic AI goes further by testing and refining communications autonomously, learning with every interaction. Consider how Yelp’s new AI receptionist and host bots can answer calls, take bookings, and even chat with other bots to coordinate reservations.
Implications: Companies should integrate predictive and conversational AI tools into their customer service stack—not just to improve efficiency, but to build anticipatory trust.
5. Retail’s Identity Crisis: Losing the Interface
While AI agents simplify the shopper’s life, they threaten to disintermediate retailers. As the Wall Street Journal notes, brands like Walmart and Etsy have jumped onto ChatGPT integration for exposure, but they risk ceding control over customer experience, data, and loyalty.
Why it matters: When AI assistants become the primary point of discovery, brand identity competes with algorithmic preference. Retailers’ lucrative ad and search ecosystems (which are worth billions annually) could erode as discovery shifts “upstream” into AI chats.
What to do: The winners will be those who co-create with AI platforms, ensuring their products and brand values are reflected accurately in conversational interfaces. Think API partnerships, branded agent personalities, and data-sharing agreements rather than banner ads.
Some concluding thoughts
The rise of agentic commerce marks a profound shift – from browsing to briefing, from searching to conversing, and from paying to being paid for by your AI.
As consumers hand over more decisions to digital intermediaries, trust, transparency, and control will define the next decade of retail. The question for brands is no longer whether AI will reshape shopping but who will own the relationship when it does.
To stay relevant, leaders must design for an audience of two: the human and the algorithm.
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Michael McQueen is a trends forecaster, change strategist and award-winning conference speaker.
He features regularly as a commentator on TV and radio and is a bestselling author of 10 books. His most recent book Mindstuck explores the psychology of stubbornness and how to change minds – including your own. Find out more here.
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