E-COMMERCE  /  TECH & INNOVATION

By FedEx | May 22, 2026

A future where AI agents browse, shop, and complete purchases on behalf of humans may be just around the corner. Here’s how agentic commerce could transform customer engagement, and what e-commerce businesses should know to stay competitive.

• Agentic commerce delivers a seamless customer experience, with AI agents acting as autonomous shopping assistants that anticipate customer needs and manage transactions end-to-end. 
• E-commerce retailers need to ensure their products appear in agentic AI interactions – or risk missing opportunities to reach customers who are ready to buy.
• The most successful brands will be those that reimagine customer engagement by optimizing content for AI visibility, enabling real-time personalization, and offering flexible e-commerce fulfillment options.

Imagine you’re shopping online for Christmas presents. In previous years, you might have spent hours choosing gifts for family and friends – from brainstorming what your loved ones would like, to scrolling through product reviews, hunting for the best deals, and confirming delivery timelines with sellers. But today, an AI shopping agent could streamline this process from hours to minutes.

Much like a personal shopper, an AI agent can suggest gifts tailored to each person’s tastes, compare different brands and options in seconds, and check whether items will arrive before Christmas. Once you pick your preferences, the agent can complete payment and coordinate delivery on your behalf. In this scenario, you no longer have to click through dozens of sites. In fact, you might not even need to manually click “Checkout”.

Such agents already exist, and they’re shaping a new era of AI in e-commerce. By 2030, AI agents could influence or manage up to 25% of global e-commerce sales. In Asia Pacific (APAC), 74% of shoppers currently use AI-powered tools to discover, track, or learn about products. As consumers become more open to agentic commerce, the role of AI will move beyond simple suggestions to making nuanced decisions about what to buy, when to buy it, and even how to negotiate discounts.

To thrive in this new reality, businesses will need to reimagine customer engagement. When algorithms – not humans – are browsing your e-commerce site, how can your business stay visible and win purchase decisions?

What is agentic commerce, and how does it work?

In essence, agentic commerce is a form of online shopping in which autonomous AI agents research, plan, and carry out purchases on behalf of consumers.

Unlike chatbots that rely on step-by-step prompts, AI agents can anticipate user needs and respond to real-time conditions. For example, they can proactively check product availability and shipping estimates before making recommendations. They can also manage recurring orders for items such as groceries, or prompt customers to reorder based on their usual buying patterns.

A crucial feature of AI shopping agents is their ability to interact directly with merchant platforms and payment systems. While traditional chatbots primarily offer suggestions, agentic AI can complete transactions autonomously. When e-commerce platforms integrate open APIs, AI agents also can use pre-authorized payment methods to finalize orders without human intervention. They may even directly communicate directly with retailers’ AI systems to negotiate bulk discounts or bundle deals in real time.

For consumers, agentic AI could transform online shopping into a more seamless and hyper-personalized experience. For brands, it means rethinking how customers discover products and make buying decisions.

The future is here: What AI in e-commerce means for businesses

This new wave in e-commerce is already underway. As advances in generative AI expand what’s possible, tech players are developing the infrastructure needed to support agentic shopping.

For example, OpenAI and payment platform Stripe have launched Instant Checkout in ChatGPT. Powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol – an open standard that enables agentic payments – this feature allows US-based ChatGPT users to ask shopping questions, make purchases, and confirm shipping details directly within the platform.

Meanwhile, Shopify has co-developed the Universal Commerce Protocol with Google. This will enable Shopify merchants to sell directly within AI Mode in Google Search and Gemini.

At the same time, more consumers are embracing AI-assisted shopping. In APAC, 63% of consumers who use AI to shop say it helps them make more inspired choices, from outfits to meals. Globally, 38% of shoppers already trust AI agents to manage routine purchases, and 55% expect to let agents handle reorders within the next three years.

As agentic commerce accelerates, businesses that adapt successfully will unlock a range of benefits. These include:

• Lower friction, higher conversions: By streamlining checkout and improving the customer experience, agentic commerce can help retailers reduce cart abandonment and increase conversion rates.
• Connecting with high-intent customers: Shoppers who ask AI for specific solutions are likely ready to buy, making them especially valuable customers.
• Capturing intent earlier: AI agents can prompt customers to reorder items or suggest purchases based on calendar events and other contextual signals. This helps brands to engage customers even before they actively begin searching for products.

How can your business prepare for agentic commerce?

If you’re an e-commerce brand, you’ve probably spent a lot of time optimizing your customer journey. That’s because traditionally, success has depended on driving traffic, capturing clicks, and creating user-friendly experiences.

While these fundamentals remain important, agentic commerce introduces a new way for customers to discover and purchase products. Beyond search engine rankings and social media visibility, businesses need to ensure their products appear in agentic AI platforms – or risk missing out on opportunities to reach customers who are ready to buy.

Here are five ways your business can start building a competitive edge.

1. Optimize your content for AI search and discovery

Most e-commerce sites today are built for search engine optimization (SEO). In the agentic era, brands will need to optimize for AI answer engines (AEO) and generative engines (GEO) as well.

Beyond targeting human keyword searches, brands must structure product content so it can be easily interpreted by Large Language Models (LLMs) and AI agents. That means organizing product catalogs using standardized attributes, including physical details such as size and color, technical specifications such as power usage, differentiators such as sustainability credentials, and more.

The more complete and structured your product data is, the easier it becomes for AI systems to understand, compare, and recommend your products. Brands can also use schema markup – structured data embedded within website code – to help AI interpret details such as product specifications, reviews, pricing, and ratings.

Another essential shift to account for is how AI systems evaluate products. Unlike human shoppers, AI agents are generally more reliant on structured information and verifiable product details. While human consumers may be influenced by eye-catching visuals or a humorous brand personality, AI systems are more likely to prioritize measurable benefits and contextual relevance.

Hence, it’s important to combine emotional appeal and strong branding with clarity and evidence. Ensure you have proof points to support product claims such as “luxurious”, “innovative”, or “sustainable”. When in doubt, use clear and natural descriptions that reflect real customer use cases.

2. Make your data machine-readable

Membership discounts, real-time availability, and fulfillment speed can all factor into AI agents’ recommendations, giving your brand an edge over competitors. However, these details aren’t always machine-readable on existing e-commerce platforms. For instance, many sites require users to log in manually before member discounts are applied at checkout.

Retailers need to expose pricing, shipping, inventory, and loyalty data in formats that AI engines can query directly, such as open APIs. Making this data machine-readable helps brands to signal value through factors like reliable fulfillment, convenience, and competitive pricing.

This will become increasingly important as agentic AI reshapes how customer loyalty is built and maintained. Traditionally, brand loyalty has relied heavily on emotional connection. But as AI shopping agents play a larger role in purchase decisions, brands will also need to ensure their loyalty benefits and competitive advantages are easily interpretable by AI systems.

By making these signals more accessible and transparent, businesses can strengthen their visibility, relevance, and competitiveness within AI-driven shopping environments.

3. Provide real-time personalization

Human shoppers have limited time and often prefer making multiple purchases from a single retailer for convenience – but this isn’t an issue for AI agents.

For example, a person might buy shampoo, soap, and shaving cream from the same store to save time. An AI shopping agent, however, can analyze a vast range of retailers and identify the best option for each product based on price, delivery speed, quality, and availability.

In response, retailers must build AI capabilities that can dynamically tailor pricing, promotions, and service offerings to each shopper’s needs. An in-house AI commerce agent can help businesses optimize margins while responding to customer preferences and competing offers in real time.

Let’s say a shopping agent is evaluating several items on your site. Your AI commerce agent could generate a personalized bundle discount to encourage higher basket value. Or imagine a scenario where the customer requests next-day delivery. Based on predefined margin targets, your AI agent could automatically waive shipping fees once a minimum spending threshold is met.

By moving beyond static pricing and one-size-fits-all promotions, businesses can maximize conversions and win over customers with more relevant, personalized shopping experiences.

4. Enable agentic checkout and AI payments

As agentic commerce matures, automated checkout flows will become more central to seamless shopping experiences. Businesses will therefore need to adopt secure payment solutions that allow AI agents to complete transactions on behalf of customers.

Leading payment providers are already piloting solutions that support agent-initiated transactions, with built-in safeguards for authentication and fraud prevention. One example is PayPal, which has partnered with AI-powered answer engine Perplexity to enable seamless in-chat checkout experiences. When US users of Perplexity Pro shop directly in the chat interface, PayPal’s tokenized wallet and passkey-enabled checkout flows handle payment, shipping, and order tracking in the background.

In APAC, Visa is introducing Visa Intelligent Commerce (VIC) – a suite of integrated APIs that allow AI agents to make transparent, consent-driven payments. This solution uses agent-specific cryptographic signatures to verify transactions and reduce fraud risks. Singapore’s DBS Bank has become the first issuer to pilot VIC for everyday payments.

As these capabilities continue to evolve, retailers should embrace flexible and secure payment methods that reduce checkout friction while building customer trust.

5. Offer flexible shipping solutions

Given that APAC consumers increasingly expect fast and free delivery, shipping speed and cost are likely to become key factors in AI-driven purchase recommendations.

To stay competitive, businesses must ensure their e-commerce fulfillment options are machine-readable and easily accessible to AI systems evaluating their stores. Open APIs can expose data such as estimated delivery times, shipping costs, and carrier options in formats AI agents can interpret directly.

Don’t overlook the importance of fulfillment in building customer loyalty as well. For example, retailers can offer shipping discounts, loyalty incentives, or priority fulfillment for repeat purchases made through AI-assisted shopping experiences.

More than ever, businesses will need reliable and flexible logistics support to serve a wide range of customer needs. If your checkout experience lacks varied and structured fulfillment options – such as same-day delivery, lower-emission shipping, or free delivery thresholds – AI agents may deprioritize your store in favor of competitors that offer greater flexibility.

By working with a logistics provider that balances speed, reliability, and competitive pricing across a wide range of shipping solutions, brands can improve visibility in AI-driven commerce environments and reach more customers.

Adapting to the next retail revolution

Agentic commerce is still in its early stages, but it’s not too soon for businesses to start experimenting.

As AI search engines and shopping agents become more integrated into e-commerce platforms, now is the time for retailers to rethink how they engage both human customers and AI systems. Businesses that adapt fast will not only stay competitive, but also help shape the future of online retail.