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Agentic Commerce

Agentic commerce refers to the next evolutionary stage of e-commerce, in which autonomous AI agents make purchasing decisions and carry out transactions instead of human users. While traditional e-commerce is based on manual search and selection by humans, in agentic commerce the user delegates the research, price comparison and payment process to an artificial intelligence.

How it works

In the agentic commerce ecosystem, the AI acts as a personal shopping assistant. The user simply specifies an intention (e.g. "Book the most sustainable hotel in Berlin for the next weekend" or "Order new running shoes with the best cushioning for my size"). The AI agent accesses product data via standardized protocols such as Google UCP, evaluates options based on user preferences and completes the purchase autonomously.

Central features

  • Autonomy: The AI acts independently within defined parameters (budget, preferences).

  • Proactivity: Agents can anticipate needs, for example when consumables are running low, and proactively suggest repeat orders.

  • Hyper-personalization: Decisions are based on a deep understanding of user behaviour and historical data.

  • Interface focus: The focus is shifting from visually appealing web stores to machine-readable data feeds and APIs.

Significance for retail

For companies, the shift towards agentic commerce means that marketing measures (SEO/SEA) no longer just have to convince people, but increasingly algorithms. The technical provision of structured data and integration into ecosystems such as Google Shopping or specialized AI platforms will become a decisive competitive advantage for the conversion rate.

 

Distinction between agentic commerce and agentic sales

Agentic commerce represents the demand side (pull), in which purchasing or shopping agents meet needs, compare offers, and make autonomous decisions. Agentic sales, on the other hand, operates from the supplier's perspective (push), with sales AI agents generating and qualifying leads and conducting negotiations to maximize revenue. Both concepts merge in the M2M commerce ecosystem, where sales agents interact directly with commerce agents via protocols such as Google's UCP and process transactions in a machine-controlled manner.

 

Sources:

  • Gartner: How Agentic Commerce Is Reshaping Path to Purchase
  • Forbes: How Autonomous AI Shopping Agents Will Transform Retail
  • Google Cloud Blog: A new era of agentic commerce is here
  • Handelsblatt: Agentic Commerce: Was es ist, warum es kommt
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