The Rise of AI Shopping Agents: Differentiate or Die

When e-commerce first emerged, it was a huge disruption for traditional retail. Today, agentic artificial intelligence stands to disrupt how people shop online even further. Banner ads and influencer campaigns are reaching the point of being passé because the next frontier of marketing won’t be optimized for human eyes. Rather, it will cater to algorithmic logic. Forward-thinking retailers like Walmart are already preparing for this significant shift in how people will discover and purchase goods.

AI shopping agents promise to fundamentally reshape online retail and usher in a dramatic evolution in advertising. How will brands connect with consumers when AI becomes the primary interface? What new strategies will be crucial for products to be considered and chosen by these autonomous shoppers?

This pivotal transformation in online commerce demands that brands move beyond conventional human-centric advertising to develop new, algorithm-aligned strategies for product discovery and selection, thereby fundamentally reshaping the future of retail interaction.

Playing to the Algorithm

In many cases, consumers are now opting to ask an AI agent like ChatGPT what their best product options are instead of executing a Google search. This new way of discovering and purchasing products shifts the power away from retailers and puts it in the hands of the AI agents and the individual brands they’re pulling information from.

This will become especially crucial in the not-too-distant future when AI shopping agents will be able to not only search for the best, most relevant products but also fully complete the purchase, including payment, without any human intervention. This capability represents the potential for a fundamental transformation in how online shopping works.

These AI agents will fully skip the online search and marketing tactics aimed at attracting human beings, and base all their choices on the data from brands about what makes their product most appropriate. The AI agents will learn based on consumers’ past preferences to make decisions on the best product for them. This pivot to AI agent-powered online shopping will shake up how marketers choose to advertise their products because the human will no longer be in control. Therefore, the content surrounding the product must cater to the AI’s preferences or it simply won’t be surfaced as an option.

When searching for a product, traditionally consumers stay within a fairly constrained set of retailers that they are familiar with. AI agents, on the other hand, can sift through massive amounts of data that would be simply unmanageable for a human alone to find the most relevant data and produce suggestions based on key factors like price, service and reliability. Because AI agents are focused on these factors, not brand loyalty, those who can provide the best service at the lowest cost will emerge victorious in AI-powered searches. This seismic shift in how people pick products online is pushing search engine optimization (SEO) to the wayside  making way for AI agent optimization (AAO). Product success in the future will hinge on a brand’s ability to communicate to the AI agent what makes its product special and valuable.

Transparent differentiation of product features and establishing AAO capabilities will be the keys to emerging victorious during this fundamental change of how people search for, and ultimately purchase, products and services. Whether the product offers exceptional features, outstanding service or groundbreaking innovation, these qualities will help it stand out among its competitors to both AI agents and customers. Brands’ futures will depend on whether they're able to appropriately adapt to this new era of online shopping driven by AI agents. Those that can communicate their unique selling points to AI agents will stand out and thrive, while those that fail to differentiate will fade out and fail.

Nikola Mrkšić is the CEO and co-founder of PolyAI, a leading provider of enterprise-ready voice assistants built for customer support.