Here's Who Will Win as Agentic Commerce Disrupts Traditional Online Shopping

For nearly two decades, online shopping followed a familiar pattern: search, browse, compare, click. Retailers fought for attention with search engine optimization tactics, paid ads and optimized product pages designed to nudge a human toward “Buy Now.”

Artificial intelligence has rewritten the script.

Agentic commerce, where AI agents search, evaluate, recommend, and even complete purchases on a buyer’s behalf, is emerging as one of the most disruptive forces e-commerce has experienced since mobile shopping. As large language models become embedded into search engines, operating systems and personal assistants, traditional online browsing starts to fade in the background. And the implications for retailers are huge.

The data already points to a massive shift. Adobe stated in its online shopping report for the 2025 holiday season that generative AI tools drove a 693.4 percent increase in traffic to retail sites compared to the year before. That’s not a novelty spike. It’s a signal.

Retailers that adapt will gain leverage. Those that don’t will simply stop showing up.

What's Changing

Agentic commerce changes where buying decisions are made. Instead of a person browsing product listings, AI agents can instantly analyze price, availability, reviews and shipping speed.

For retailers, that means there's a new gatekeeper. It values clarity, consistency and credibility over flashy creative or major discounts. The focus shifts from getting a shopper to click to getting AI to choose your product. That happens by feeding structured, trustworthy data into the logic driving product selection.

Who is Positioned to Win

Some retailers are already better prepared for this shift. They are:

• Tech-Forward: Retailers that consistently invest in their tech stack have a head start. Flexible commerce platforms, real-time inventory visibility and accurate shipping logic are all critical inputs AI agents rely on to make recommendations and decisions. If an agent can’t assess whether a product can arrive on time, at the promised cost and with minimal friction, it will move on. Retailers with outdated systems or fragmented data will struggle to compete.
• Storytellers: When AI narrows options to one or two recommendations, brand still matters, just differently. Product specs alone won’t suffice. AI systems evaluate qualitative signals like customer sentiment, brand values, sustainability practices, store policy, and consistency of messaging across channels. Retailers that articulate what they are clearly, and back it up operationally, give AI something meaningful to rank.
• Data-Centric: Agentic commerce runs on data. Inaccurate product info, outdated pricing, inconsistent shipping promises or vague return policies all create friction. And friction is the enemy of automation.

Retailers that maintain clean product catalogs, reliable fulfillment data and transparent policies will surface in AI recommendations. The rest will get filtered out.

Who Will Feel the Pain

Agentic commerce creates opportunity for some. For others, it exposes operational weaknesses. Those that will struggle in the new agentic e-commerce environment are:

• Late Adopters: Retailers waiting for agentic commerce to fully mature before taking it seriously. Early movers already have a major advantage. This doesn't mean you need to overhaul your entire business overnight, but it is a push to experiment, test and prepare now.
• Part-Time Sellers: AI agents prioritize reliability, fulfillment speed and brand credibility. That means thin-margin sellers with little differentiation will struggle to surface. Without strong operational signals or a compelling brand story, these businesses will be filtered out before a shopper even sees them.
• Brands That Depend on Paid Discovery: Paid acquisition has long been a lever retailers have relied on for growth. AI agents don’t click ads or browse promoted listings. Retailers overly dependent on paid channels will need to rethink how they show up in an ecosystem where influence is earned through data quality and trust, not ad budget.

Preparing for the Future Now

The retailers that win in agentic commerce won’t be the loudest; they’ll be the clearest. That means tightening the fundamentals: accurate product data, realistic delivery promises, aligned inventory and checkout logic, and policies that don’t surprise customers after the fact. These details used to live behind the scenes. Now they directly influence whether you’re even considered.

When AI becomes the decision maker, clarity is strategy, trust is currency and operational discipline is no longer optional. It’s how you stay visible at all.

Quentin Montalto is chief operating officer of ShipperHQ, the leading shipping experience platform for ecommerce stores.