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Big Tech is moving fast to dominate this emerging ecosystem. OpenAI is integrating shopping capabilities directly into ChatGPT, blurring the lines between conversation and conversion. Amazon’ s Buy for Me feature enables users to complete purchases from third-party sites without ever leaving the Amazon app, asserting control over a broader slice of the buying journey. Meanwhile, Perplexity launched Shop Like a Pro late last year, and Microsoft rolled out its own merchant program. The race is on.
Behind the scenes, payments infrastructure is also adapting. Mastercard, VISA and Paypal are exploring ways to support AI-mediated transactions – a sign this shift isn’ t speculative, but systematic.
These bold moves by the world’ s biggest tech players point to a near-future e-commerce system where AI dominates. In this machinedriven marketplace, the customer journey begins without the customer, and brands that aren’ t visible to AI risk disappearing from the buying process entirely.
When the algorithm starts shopping
Agentic commerce isn’ t just another tech upgrade to integrate, and it will have a profound impact on how retail works, from pricing and positioning to discovery and CX.
The transition to agentic commerce will accelerate existing trends like commoditization and the squeeze on midtier brands. When AI agents shop on our behalf, they zero in on cold criteria: price, reviews, specifications, and fulfilment speed. In an era optimized for algorithms, marketing fluff will be filtered out, and the digital advertising model will need to adapt, fast.
In this model, shopping is no longer a leisurely or exploratory activity but becomes zero-click: prompted and purchased without friction. While this is a win for low-stakes, repeatable purchases – think batteries, toiletries or dog food – it introduces new challenges for products that rely on emotional resonance or discovery.
The‘ surprise and delight’ moments of stumbling across an unexpected product online, or the serendipity of in-store browsing are at risk of being flattened by automation. The question for retailers, then, isn’ t just how to optimize for AI, but how to maintain excitement in a system optimized for efficiency.
Staying seen when the bots take over
To stay visible, businesses need to align with how AI systems evaluate and select products, retooling the mechanics behind marketing. Agentic platforms don’ t browse or scroll like humans do, but filter, rank and transact based on structured inputs. It will become less about driving awareness, and more about producing clean, context-rich product data, dynamic pricing and technical compatibility with the platforms doing the buying.
This shift also demands a new marketing skillset. As search evolves into conversation and generative engines replace traditional ones, businesses must master Generative Search Optimization( GEO). This means designing content and product data not for human discovery, but for LLM-driven platforms. Broad awareness campaigns, then, must give way to machine-contextual clues that make a product stand out in an AI-curated shortlist.
At the same time, experience still matters. Organizations should automate where it solves decision fatigue but protect the emotional high points of shopping where discovery and delight still drive value. Not everything has to be a‘ zero-click’ transaction. This shift also brings a new ethics and consumer trust equation. As AI continues to take the load off humans in every aspect of digital life, consumers still need visibility into how and why products are recommended. Investing in transparency, ethical data use
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