Agentic AI and Ecommerce: The Story Behind the Hype
The noise around agentic AI in ecommerce is growing louder. Autonomous systems that can research, compare, and buy on your behalf are being touted as the future. Industry analysts picturing a world where AI handles everything from reordering your groceries to negotiating B2B contracts. It sounds revolutionary. But step back for a moment: is this really the death of the shopping experience as we know it, or just another tool retailers need to integrate?
The Promise of Agentic AI
At its core, agentic AI represents a fundamental shift from reactive to proactive commerce. Instead of clicking through listings, these systems understand your preferences, budget, and needs, then make purchasing decisions for you. Imagine an AI that automatically reorders your household essentials, negotiates better prices for business supplies, or researches and selects the perfect gift based on the recipient's interests and your relationship history.
For routine orders and time-sensitive procurement, this could strip out hours of admin. Early adopters in B2B procurement are already using AI agents to navigate supplier networks and even negotiate pricing.
On paper, it’s a huge efficiency gain.
The Bit Everyone Ignores: People Like to Shop
What’s missing from the “AI takes over commerce” story is simple: humans genuinely enjoy shopping. The act of browsing, discovering, and choosing isn't just a necessary evil we're eager to automate away, it’s often the point.
Consider how people shop for clothing, homeware, tech, the process of browsing, comparing, and imagining is part of the purchase journey. It drives brand discovery, emotional connection, and those all-important impulse buys. It introduces consumers to new brands, and creates emotional connections with products that pure efficiency optimization cannot replicate. B2B, decision-makers want control and visibility over strategic purchases. Forcing everything into automation risks stripping out the human element that builds trust and engagement.
Even in digital environments, the browsing experience serves important psychological functions. Window shopping, whether physical or virtual, offers entertainment, inspiration, and a sense of control over our choices. The serendipitous discovery of an unexpected product or the satisfaction of finding the perfect item after careful consideration are experiences many consumers actively seek, not problems to be solved.
Tools, Not Replacements
Rather than viewing agentic AI as a replacement for traditional ecommerce, smart retailers are positioning it as another tool in the consumer's shopping arsenal. The future likely involves a hybrid approach where AI handles routine, utilitarian purchases while preserving the discovery and exploration aspects that consumers value.
Let AI handle the repeatable: subscriptions, replenishment, procurement workflows.
Preserve exploration and discovery where it drives value.
Use AI to enhance browsing with smarter recommendations rather than replace it entirely.
Some consumers will embrace full automation for certain categories while preferring hands-on control for others. The most successful retailers will be those who can seamlessly support both preferences within a unified platform experience.
Why This Matters for Your Platform
Here’s the kicker: none of this works if you’re sitting on a rigid monolith.
Agentic AI needs clean data, APIs, and the ability to experiment quickly with new interaction models. Composable commerce architectures – modular, API-driven, and flexible – are the only realistic foundation for integrating AI agents without ripping everything up every time the technology shifts.
Legacy platforms with 18-month release cycles? They’ll be the ones scrambling to bolt on AI while more agile competitors test, iterate, and win market share in real time.
The Strategic Imperative: Prepare Now
This evolution is happening whether you’re ready or not. The question isn't whether agentic AI will impact ecommerce - it's whether your platform will be ready to adapt when the tipping point arrives.
The retailers who thrive in this transition will be those investing in flexible, composable ecommerce architectures today. Traditional monolithic platforms struggle to integrate new AI capabilities and adapt to changing consumer behaviours. In contrast, a composable commerce approach, built on microservices, APIs, and modular components, can evolve alongside these technologies.
This architectural flexibility will allow you to experiment with AI agents, test new interaction models, and scale successful innovations without rebuilding your entire technology stack. When your competitors are locked into rigid platforms and facing two-year improvement cycles, you'll be able to adapt and iterate in real-time.
The Strategic Play
If you’re a retailer, the time to act is now:
Get your data in order: customer preferences, purchase history, supplier relationships.
Expose it via APIs so both humans and AI agents can access it.
Invest in composable architecture to avoid being locked out of the next wave of innovation.
Agentic AI will undoubtedly transform ecommerce, but the transformation will be more nuanced than simple replacement scenarios suggest. Success will come from understanding which aspects of the shopping experience benefit from automation and which provide irreplaceable human value.
The future won’t be AI versus human. It will be platforms smart enough to serve both. Are you building the foundation for tomorrow's shopping experiences today? The retailers who start preparing now will define the next chapter of digital commerce. Contact us for more information.