The trend: Retailers and tech giants are actively experimenting with AI agents that can act on behalf of consumers—automating product discovery, price comparisons, replenishment, and even purchases.
The latest examples:
- eBay has launched a shopping assistant that offers real-time, personalized product picks. It responds to user input or proactively suggests items based on browsing behavior.
- Amazon is testing Buy for Me, an AI agent that completes purchases from third-party sites when items are out of stock on Amazon—seamlessly handling payment and shipping.
- Perplexity, in partnership with PayPal, will soon enable US consumers to make purchases, book travel, and more without leaving its interface. Shoppers can ask Perplexity to find products and then use PayPal or Venmo to check out—completing the entire process including payment, shipping, and invoicing—without needing to enter a password or any other manual inputs.
- Walmart is developing AI agents for its app and site that can reorder groceries or build an entire shopping basket with a simple prompt like “plan a unicorn-themed party for my daughter,” US CTO Hari Vasudev told The Wall Street Journal.
Shifting strategies: Retailers like Walmart are also preparing for a future in which third-party agents interact directly with their platforms. Consumers might ask their agent to find the lowest price or buy from a preferred store, which could force retailers to reengineer ecommerce systems to accommodate AI-driven interactions instead of human ones.
What it means for ecommerce: Agentic AI won’t upend ecommerce overnight, but it introduces real challenges that retailers can’t afford to ignore:
- Rising price pressure: Autonomous agents can instantly find the lowest prices or pounce on limited-time offers—putting downward pressure on margins.
- Discovery disruption: As agents take over product research, traditional search formats and organic visibility may lose relevance, making it harder for brands to break through.
- Ad performance risk: With fewer human shoppers browsing, retail media and search ad traffic could dip—intensifying competition for premium placements near agent-generated results.
- Content overhaul: Standard product detail pages may lose influence if AI—not humans—is driving decisions, forcing retailers to rethink how they present and structure product content.
Our take: It’s still early days for agentic AI. While we’re bullish on the rapid rise of autonomous shopping agents—especially among younger consumers—we’re cautious about near-term mass adoption because most shoppers aren’t yet ready to hand over the reins. But that’s exactly why now is the time to test, learn, and iterate—before agentic AI moves from emerging tech to everyday expectation.
Go further: Read our report AI Agents and the Consumer Journey.