By Stephen DeAngelis
I have been reading a lot more articles about agentic commerce over the past few months. Ben Fox Rubin, Vice President for Global Communications at Mastercard, explains that agentic commerce resides at the “intersection of agentic AI and online shopping.”[1] The Salesforce staff predicts that agentic commerce will be “the next phase of generative AI for online businesses.”[2] And McKinsey & Company analysts Katharina Schumacher, Roger Roberts, and Katharina Giebel predict that agentic commerce will usher in a new era for consumers and merchants. They explain, “This isn’t just an evolution of e-commerce. It’s a rethinking of shopping itself in which the boundaries between platforms, services, and experiences give way to an integrated intent-driven flow, through highly personalized consumer journeys that deliver a fast, frictionless outcome.”[3]
What is Agentic Commerce?
Laura Furlong, a Senior Marketing Manager at VGS, defines agentic commerce as “AI agents acting on behalf of an individual (usually a consumer) to make a purchase online.”[4] She continues, “In agentic commerce, agents generally use conversational AI models to help consumers make purchasing decisions and ultimately complete a purchase on their behalf based on a set of consumer-defined parameters. Essentially, agentic commerce is using AI commerce tools and platforms to enhance and streamline e-commerce operations, enhancing customer service experiences through machine learning, data analytics, and intelligent automation.”
Consumers have mixed views about their interactions with chatbots used by online websites over the past several years. They have often found chatbots helpful and almost as often found them frustrating. The Salesforce staff notes, “In contrast to copilots and chatbots that rely on human requests and struggle with complex or multi-step tasks, ecommerce agents offer a new level of sophistication. … Consumer-facing agents take chatbots and other AI shopping interactions to the next level. Unlike traditional chatbots, agents can reason, learn, and adapt.” They suggest that e-commerce agents possess five specific attributes that enable them to follow through on a task. Those attributes are:
1. A proper role (What job should they do?).
2. Access to the right data (What knowledge can they access?).
3. The capacity to carry out correct actions (What capabilities do they have?)
4. Constrained by appropriate guardrails (What shouldn’t they do?)
5. Be available on the profitable channels (Where do they work?)
The Salesforce staff concludes, “You can think of shopper agents as a digital concierge, providing personalized assistance by guiding product searches and offering tailored assistance on ecommerce sites.”
Is Agentic Commerce the Future of E-commerce?
The simple answer to that question is a qualified yes. Schumacher and her McKinsey colleagues explain, “The stakes are high. By 2030, the US B2C retail market alone could see up to $1 trillion in orchestrated revenue from agentic commerce, with global projections reaching as high as $3 trillion to $5 trillion, according to McKinsey research. This trend will have the breadth of impact of prior web and mobile-commerce revolutions, but it can move even faster since agents can traverse the same digital paths to purchase as humans, allowing them to ‘ride on the rails’ laid down by these prior revolutions.”
With all this excitement about agentic commerce, why did I qualify my “yes” answer about agentic commerce’s future? Aaron Cheris, a Partner at Bain & Company, reports that many consumers harbor serious doubts about letting AI agents do their shopping.[5] The PYMNTS staff notes, “95% of consumers have at least one concern about agentic commerce. Despite many consumers’ willingness to let AI complete purchases on their behalf, most still harbor concerns about agentic AI controlling commerce.”[6] Journalist Paresh Dave reports that most consumers prefer AI to assist them with their shopping rather than do it for them. He writes, “In one of the frankest comments on agentic shopping made by a top tech boss, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy recently criticized how agentic shopping currently works on other platforms. ‘I would say the customer experience is not good,’ Jassy said on an earnings call last month. ‘There’s no personalization. There’s no shopping history. The delivery estimates are frequently wrong. The prices are often wrong. We have got to find a way to make the customer experience better and have the right exchange of value.’”[7]
If agentic commerce is going to meet expectations, it must overcome this lack of consumer confidence. Most analysts believe this will happen; especially as AI natives (i.e., people born since the beginning of the AI era) become primary consumers. Cheris writes, “This is the moment to strengthen customer relationships, build trust, and make retailer-value obvious — to humans and to algorithms alike.”
Concluding Thoughts
There is enough smoke in the air about agentic commerce that retailers would be foolish think there isn’t a fire to which they must respond. The question is: How should retailers respond to agentic commerce? Boston Consulting Group (BCG) analysts, Mike Evans, Robert Derow, Mitch Krogman, and Lia Gregor, insist, “To win in the new normal, retailers must invest across three pillars: third-party agents; retailer-owned agents, and agentic foundations (i.e., AI and data platform; measurement; operating model & governance; and talent & skills).”[8]
The staff at Google Cloud suggests retailers need to take advantage of two distinct opportunities. They are: Owning the consumer experience end-to-end; and, owning the transaction, regardless of origin.[9] In order to own the consumer experience end-to-end, the staff recommends creating “a branded agentic experience that curates the entire journey, from discovery to loyalty.” To do that, they suggest: 1) guiding intelligent product discovery by helping agents proactively connect consumers with the right products and cross-sell or upsell opportunities; 2) enabling cross-retailer shopping through a branded environment, aiming to facilitate negotiation and personalization; and 3) building loyalty through personalized experiences based on preferences and purchase history. To own the transaction, regardless of origin, the Google Cloud staff recommends capturing the sale no matter where it originates — the company’s site, a consumer's personal agent, or another platform. To accomplish this, the staff recommends: 1) participating in the broader agentic commerce network through agent-to-agent transactions; 2) meeting industry-leading standards for payments, checkout, and agent interoperability; and 3) making products available wherever purchasing decisions happen.
Evans and his BCG colleagues believe the window of opportunity for retailers will close fast. They explain, “AI agents aren’t just another wave of digital innovation — they are fundamentally reshaping the retail landscape. While almost all global retailers are exploring agentic commerce, they are not moving fast enough. Those who move now by investing in agentic capabilities and building AI-native experiences will define the next era of customer engagement, brand relevance, and operational efficiency. Those who wait risk becoming invisible, disintermediated from the customers they once knew. The window to lead is rapidly closing, but for those bold enough to act, the upside is transformative.”
Footnotes
[1] Ben Fox Rubin, “What is agentic commerce? Your guide to AI-assisted retail,” Mastercard Stories, 4 September 2025.
[2] Staff, “What Is Agentic Commerce?” Salesforce.
[3] Katharina Schumacher and Roger Roberts with Katharina Giebel, “The agentic commerce opportunity: How AI agents are ushering in a new era for consumers and merchants,” Quantum Black, 17 October 2025.
[4] Laura Furlong, “Agentic Commerce: What you need to know,” VGS Blog, 13 May 2025.
[5] Aaron Cheris, “Agentic AI poised to disrupt retail, even with 50% of consumers cautious of fully autonomous purchases—Bain & Company,” Bain & Company Press Release, 13 November 2025.
[6] Staff, “Agents of Change: How Agentic AI Is Redefining Commerce,” PYMNTS, November 2025.
[7] Paresh Dave, “You Won’t Be Able to Offload Your Holiday Shopping to AI Agents Anytime Soon,” Wired, 14 November 2025.
[8] Mike Evans, Robert Derow, Mitch Krogman, and Lia Gregor, “Agentic Commerce is Redefining Retail—Here’s How to Respond,” Boston Consulting Group, 6 October 2025.
[9] Staff, “Agentic commerce is here: How retailers can prepare for the new shopping era,” Google Cloud, 7 October 2025.
