The news: Microsoft announced agentic AI tools for Microsoft Clarity that help retailers understand the customer journey, optimize websites for agents, and get insights into their site behavior. Updates include:

Agentic Analytics: Retailers can see which agents are visiting their site, what they’re doing, and whether they can execute important actions like checking out.

• A dashboard shows where agents are coming from and their traffic patterns, as well as whether they take actions like submitting forms, logging in, or booking appointments.
• Simulated assessments help brands see how they can optimize their site to help agents complete tasks more quickly or with fewer interactions.

Brand Agents: Eligible merchants can expand product discovery outside of their own website when shoppers ask AI for recommendations across Bing, Copilot, and MSN.

• The agents can assist local businesses with building leads by helping site visitors understand company offerings, determine which services fit their needs, and take steps to book appointments.
• They can connect with booking and scheduling tools like Calendly, Housecall Pro, HubSpot, Jobber, Salesforce, and Square.

Ask Clarity: Retailers can ask questions about website behavior in natural language and get answers and advice based on consumer behavior. The AI then offers recommendations and findings, with the goal of helping marketers understand on-site signals. It’s in a closed beta, with a waitlist available for access.

Zooming out: Agentic traffic is accelerating as AI becomes a valuable step in the shopping and booking journey. Consumer enthusiasm remains conditional, though. Shoppers are more comfortable using AI to ask for recommendations and conduct product research—features that Microsoft’s Brand Agents offer.

• Daily requests from AI agents across Cloudflare’s network grew 1,700% YoY as of September.
• AI-referred traffic to US retail sites increased 71% YoY in September, per Adobe, with those visitors converting 90% better than non-AI traffic.
• 31% of worldwide consumers would let AI independently make lower-stakes decisions for them, like scheduling appointments or choosing products, per Ping Identity.

Implications for retailers: Optimizing for an agentic audience is important because sites built solely for human navigation may not serve agents effectively. Some companies, including People Inc., are already launching APIs that optimize their sites for agentic use, per Digiday.

Agentic analytics could be a new priority for conversion optimization—marketers will need visibility into which agents visit, where friction lies, and whether their interactions generate business outcomes.

This content is part of EMARKETER’s subscription Briefings, where we pair daily updates with data and analysis from forecasts and research reports. Our Briefings prepare you to start your day informed, to provide critical insights in an important meeting, and to understand the context of what’s happening in your industry. Non-clients can click here to get a demo of our full platform and coverage.