________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Shopping and explainability are crucial not just as risk mitigation, but as commercial differentiators.
Ultimately, this is a strategic inflection point. Agentic commerce will shift power and rewire customer influence. Brands must re-examine their positioning and engagement models through a new lens – one where the gatekeeper is no longer the consumer, but the AI deciding for them. The real question is whether your business is surfacing or disappearing.
The time to adapt is now
Agentic commerce isn’ t a passing trend or far-off future; it’ s already embedded into the infrastructure of tomorrow’ s retail. The algorithms making buying decisions won’ t care about brand legacy or clever creative, but will reward the brands that are fast, structured and machine optimized.
For businesses, the opportunity is real – but so is the risk. Those that adapt early will shape the rules of engagement and stay visible in an increasingly machine-mediated world. Those that delay may find themselves optimized out of the consumer journey altogether.
This is not the moment to wait and see. It’ s the moment to re-engineer, re-strategize and prepare for what comes next, because the bots are already buying. ■
Ben Wiener www. cognizant. com
Ben Wiener is Global Head of Cognizant Moment. Cognizant helps companies modernize technology, reimagine processes and transform experiences so they stay ahead in a fast-changing world.
retail-merchandiser. com 17