While simpler rule-based bots can respond to scripted prompts, modern intelligent agents have broader functionality—they can reason, plan and act across multiple systems and AI platforms.
- From a technical standpoint, this transformation depends on a new class of integration standards and protocols.
- SEO optimizes content for search engine ranking pages, while GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) makes content easy for AI search and chat tools to understand, trust, and surface in their answers.
- We believe the industry will need to align on standard protocols that enable agents to access merchant product catalogues, inventory, pricing, and post-sale data.
- The agent can scale to catalogs with more than 10 million items, helping teams improve content 70% faster, increase data completeness by 5%, and reduce maintenance effort by 63%.
When BNPL options live inside the workflows practices already use, adoption will rise naturally,” he told the E-Commerce Times. Surcharging will shift from being an exception to an expectation in industries where margins are tight and card costs are rising. “Tools that ignore human nuance, including tone, temperament, personality, and emotional bandwidth, will quickly feel obsolete. The next wave of AI will be judged by how well it adapts to each individual,” he told the E-Commerce Times. But more capable relatives — generative AI and agentic AI — are the most powerful tools for e-commerce https://www.visual-strategies.org/what-are-the-trends-in-color-usage-for-branding/ workers. “Unified platforms will become the default digital architecture for retailers and brands in 2026. This will not be seen as innovation, but survival, since fragmented stacks cannot support the scale and flexibility modern commerce demands,” he told the E-Commerce Times.
General-purpose “horizontal” agents work across all categories and industries, and increasingly integrate merchant-owned checkout and payment capabilities so a simple conversational query can turn into a completed transaction. Of shoppers are expected to shift at least half of their commerce activities into agent-mediated ecosystems in the next two years.2 Of frequent AI users in North America say they’d be open to switching away from a previously preferred brand if their AI assistant offered a better alternative.1
Tools
If consumers select Klarna at checkout, they will have access to payment options, including the company’s option to pay in four interest-free installments and longer-term financing for larger purchases. At checkout, users will see Affirm and Klarna as options within Google Pay. American Express launches developer kit, purchase protection for agentic commerce Google and Shopify co-developed the UCP as an open standard for agentic commerce that determines how agentic AI and ecommerce platforms can interact. “As AI becomes a more active part of how people discover and buy, it’s critical that the payment options remain secure and reliable,” said Ashish Gupta, vice president and general manager of merchant shopping at Google, in an announcement. Specifically, users will be able to use Affirm or Klarna when checking out with Google Pay.
Trend 3 – Purpose-built agents lead the early wave instead of complex A2A solutions
To thrive in the agentic commerce era, global retailers must produce high-fidelity, brand-aligned content at a pace that matches shifting consumer trends. In addition, Google Cloud continues to bring the best of Google to our customers — from improving search experiences with our Knowledge Graph and Shopping Graph, to transforming retail businesses with Gemini Enterprise, our Vertex AI platform, and other AI tools. For retailers, the opportunity is no longer about just being more efficient; it’s about finding the right customers and making it easy for them to https://scivast.com/articles/understanding-types-of-erp-systems/ buy.
Control of Interfaces and Infrastructure Defines Competitive Positioning
In agentic commerce, an AI agent helps handle some or all of those steps—surfacing relevant products, answering questions, and guiding the shopper through to purchase. It embeds intelligent systems into operating models and workflows to unlock entirely new value pools. Explore six leadership traits that enable Talent Reinventors to achieve breakthrough results and outperform peers.
We are committed to providing the infrastructure that gives retailers their most valuable resource back — time — and ensures that every brand, from global icons to https://www.agence-enash.com/what-is-the-apple-shopping-event/ digital natives, has the tools to thrive in the next generation of commerce. By allowing customers to describe scents in their own natural language, the agent maps personal preferences to Jo Malone’s complex olfactory data, providing bespoke, expert-informed recommendations that move a shopper from curiosity to a confident purchase. The collaboration provides Gap Inc. with a unified, AI-powered platform, which it expects to fuel innovation and greater efficiency across product creation, customer experience, and employee enablement using Google Cloud technologies, such as Gemini, Vertex AI, and BigQuery. This widespread adoption enables the rapid generation of everything from business development prospecting to high-end campaign conceptualization. Authentic Brands Group (Authentic) — owner of more than 50 iconic brands including Juicy Couture, Reebok and SHAQ — is seizing this opportunity through its newly launched “Authentic Intelligence” platform. From department stores to leading luxury houses, some of the world’s most iconic brands are using Google Cloud to create fresh takes on retail experiences that reflect how consumers shop today and how they want to shop in the future.
- For years, payment providers have competed on a familiar set of dimensions such as authorization rates, cost, geographic coverage, and value-added services.
- Merchants will gain access to new ways to become discoverable while offering payments flexibility, built on the latest PayPal checkout configurations.
- Do the work now, get ahead of the curve, and earn the right to scale fast when the channel demands it.
- As consumers increasingly delegate shopping to AI agents, brands, retailers and B2B organizations must rethink how they engage and deliver value.
- That gives developers a direct way to participate in the value they help create.
Google Cloud elevates customer experience for the agentic commerce era
App Extensions launches with 15+ partners, including Klaviyo, Loop, Smile, Judge.me, Matrixify, Avia, Seguno, Checkout Links, and Yotpo. Data extensions let Sidekick surface a partner app’s data when a merchant asks a relevant question whether it’s about campaign performance or loyalty stats. App developers can surface their app’s data and actions directly inside Sidekick conversations. Context switching breaks momentum for developers and merchants.