Revolutionizing Online Retail: The Impact of Agentic Commerce

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• Google launched the Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) in September, providing a framework for agents to make verifiable purchases.
• OpenAI, working with Stripe, has developed the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) for completing transactions within ChatGPT.

For retailers, this patchwork can be confusing and expensive, especially as there’s no guarantee which protocol will become dominant.

“Each protocol is a burden for the merchant,” said Kumar Senthil, founder of Firmly, a Seattle-area startup building software that hides some of this complexity. His company, which recently partnered with Perplexity, lets merchants connect to multiple protocols through a single interface.

Firmly is trying to solve a basic problem: merchants can’t afford to integrate with every AI platform, but they also don’t want to miss out on any of them.

Senthil, who previously built Samsung’s e-commerce platform, said online retailers need to have “microstores” everywhere. Their traditional websites, he predicts, will go dark.

“The stores are going to be distributed across the internet,” he said.

But AI assistants need to draw on data from somewhere — which means a brand’s homepage could still serve an important purpose, even if the act of purchasing gets dispersed.

Brands like Brooks Running are refocusing their sites to make them easy for AI systems to read and understand. “We’re continuing to emphasize crawling, indexing, and ranking technical SEO opportunities through the lens of AI,” said Ryan Ngo, vice president of North America marketing and e-commerce at the Seattle-based company.

Beyond making a website “AI-ready,” Arena said brands should let shoppers ask questions about their products in plain language, using built-in AI chat on their own sites. “People are going to be frustrated that your website can’t answer them,” he said.

In Pfeiffer’s view, the bigger strategic risk lies in places brands don’t control — AI-powered search tools like ChatGPT or Gemini that could become powerful new gateways for finding and buying products. In that world, brands face the same decisions they once confronted with Amazon: what to share in each place people might shop, what to keep exclusive, and how to protect pricing and sensitive data.

What happens to Amazon?

Amazon helped shape modern online shopping when the Seattle-based giant started selling books on the internet more than three decades ago. The company is now a giant in online retail, and it’s staring at another potential shift with the rise of agentic commerce.

Amazon is in a tricky spot. The company captures roughly 40% of U.S. e-commerce spending and has a fast-growing advertising business that brings in around $70 billion a year — revenue that depends on humans browsing and clicking.

In November, Amazon sued Perplexity to stop the startup from using its AI browser agent to make purchases on its marketplace, citing computer fraud laws and security risks, along with a “significantly degraded shopping and customer service experience it provides.” Amazon has maintained what Bloomberg described as “a walled garden” that doesn’t allow autonomous shopping on its site.

Perplexity CEO Aravind Srinivas called the lawsuit “a bully tactic” and argued consumers should be free to use whatever AI assistant they prefer.

“Amazon should love this. Easier shopping means more transactions and happier customers,” Srinivas wrote. “But Amazon doesn’t care. They’re more interested in serving you ads, sponsored results, and influencing your purchasing decisions with upsells and confusing offers.”

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy acknowledged on a recent earnings call that agentic commerce “has a chance to be really good for e-commerce” and said that he expects the company to partner with third-party agents over time. But he also said agents “aren’t very good” at personalization and often display incorrect pricing and delivery estimates.

“So we’ve got to find a way to make the customer experience better and have the right exchange value,” Jassy said.

Amazon’s AI shopping assistant, Rufus, now has more than 250 million active customers. Amazon says that customers using the assistant during a shopping trip are 60% more likely to complete a purchase.

The company has also been testing a “Buy For Me” feature that lets customers purchase products from other brands’ sites, from inside Amazon’s mobile shopping app.

Senthil, the Firmly CEO, sees Amazon as potentially vulnerable. He questioned whether Amazon’s delivery speed advantage — long considered a competitive moat — will matter as much in a world where consumers place less emphasis on faster shipping times.

The rise of third-party AI agents, such as Perplexity’s Comet browser, could also weaken Amazon’s grip on customers. E-commerce journalist Jason Del Rey noted that if agents own the relationship and steer shoppers across sites, Amazon risks looking more like fulfillment infrastructure. That raises a long-term question, he said — if agents sit between shoppers and stores, who ends up capturing most of the value?

But others don’t expect AI tools to displace Amazon for now.

“It is highly unlikely that ChatGPT will be a dominant shopping cart mainly because e-commerce isn’t a problem that needs fixing,” said Sucharita Kodali, a retail industry analyst with Forrester.

The Ease and Influence of Online Shopping with AI Assistants

Shopping online has become a seamless experience for millions of people worldwide, with Amazon being a popular choice year after year.

Kodali noted that the value brought by ChatGPT to retailers is uncertain, except for potentially disrupting Google’s role.

Google recently introduced AI shopping features through Gemini, including “agentic checkout” for users to set spending limits and product preferences, alongside the infrastructure development with AP2.

Microsoft is also stepping into the agentic commerce realm, offering assistance to retailers and brands in integrating AI assistants into their platforms or chatbots.

Kathleen Mitford from Microsoft emphasized the importance of reliable and secure frameworks for intelligent agents to operate effectively in the commerce ecosystem.

Personalized Shopping Experiences with AI

AI assistants are revolutionizing the way individuals shop by offering personalized recommendations based on their preferences, such as planning for upcoming vacations.

By leveraging personal data like calendars and budgets, AI agents can enhance the shopping experience by tailoring suggestions to specific needs.

Conversational commerce is evolving towards interactive exchanges between retailers and customers, enabling more effective communication and personalized services.

Lorrin Pascoe, CMO of Vessi, believes that AI agents will play a crucial role in engaging customers and shaping their shopping behaviors.

Vessi’s transition from an online-only brand to opening a physical store signifies the dynamic nature of retail and the unpredictable path that agentic commerce may take in the future.

Transform the following:

“Can you please pass me the salt?”

into:

“Would you mind passing the salt, please?”