Agentic Commerce: The Future of E-Commerce?

There is a new trend in e-commerce: agentic commerce is set to revolutionize digital commerce through the use of AI-based agents that carry out purchases autonomously on behalf of the user. If industry augurs are to be believed, companies need to prepare strategically for agentic commerce in order to be successful in this new era of e-commerce. We explain this new trend and provide an assessment.

What Is Agentic Commerce and Why Is It Important?

By definition, agentic commerce describes a new evolutionary stage in digital commerce: AI-based agents take over decisions and carry out purchases autonomously on behalf of the user. These intelligent, AI-controlled software agents research, compare, recommend and purchase products or services independently. They are proactive, personalized and automated.

The relevance of agentic commerce in e-commerce should not be underestimated. The role of the consumer is changing fundamentally: from active buyer to decision-maker via guidelines, while agents take over the execution. This would mean that companies would have to adapt their strategies in order to remain competitive in an AI-dominated retail future.

Examples of Agentic Commerce in Practice

Examples of agentic commerce include

• Voice assistants such as Alexa and Google Assistant, which reorder consumer goods without the user having to take any action
• searching for and recommending products and services via AI tools such as ChatGPT
• Bots in messengers that process recurring orders

Important features of these agents are their proactivity, the personalization of their recommendations based on user data, the automation of recurring purchases or repeat orders and their trustworthiness, as they make decisions on behalf of the user.

Agentic Commerce, the Next Pig to Be Driven Through the E-Commerce Village?

Orders placed by voice assistants were touted as the future of e-commerce some time ago - albeit under the term "Conversional Commerce".

We remember the Amazon Dash Button, a small Wi-Fi button that Prime users could use to reorder common items (e.g. detergent, toilet paper) at the touch of a button. It was introduced in 2015 as part of the Amazon Dash service and discontinued after four years.

In fact, e-commerce sales made via messenger bots are unknown and sales made directly via voice commands are currently only in the low single-digit percentage range - often less than 1% to a maximum of 2-3% of total e-commerce sales.

So is agentic commerce another bubble that companies can safely ignore? The idea of toilet paper piling up on your doorstep because you made a mistake when configuring your e-commerce agent is likely to frighten older people in particular. Younger people have far fewer fears when it comes to using AI tools, so we can actually imagine that the use of agents in e-commerce will increase over time and as the technology develops. This is particularly conceivable for the replacement of everyday consumer goods where the shopping experience plays a subordinate role.

The influence of artificial intelligence on the search for products and services on the internet is much more interesting, is developing faster and is therefore relevant for companies. Even if Google continues to dominate the search market with 89 to 90 %,ChatGPT already accounts for a small but dynamically growing share of the search market - ranging from a very conservative 0.25 % to around 4 % according to more optimistic forecasts. There are opportunities here for companies to adapt to the changes in the search market faster than the competition and overtake the established and sluggish big ships.

Strategic Preparation for Agentic Commerce With Pimcore

What market share Agentic Commerce will actually have is written in the stars. However, companies should already ensure that their products can be found and recommended by the AI search, regardless of whether the order is triggered by a human or their agent.

Product information management systems such as Pimcore play a central role here. Since AI systemsdo not understand emotions or brand narratives, but rather analyze structured, comparable and current data, this data must be recorded, aggregated and made available via the store. Standardized taxonomies will play a greater role here in the future, as they will make products comparable for AI. It also makes sense to use suitable tools (such as the Conductor AI tools) to work out whether the questions of interested users are answered by the available information and, if not, to close any gaps in the product descriptions. Automated quality assurance through mandatory field checks and rules ensures that the data is correct and complete.

Optimization of Product Data and Communication for AI Agents

In principle, little will change in e-commerce in the future: "Content remains king". Anyone who has done search engine optimization wisely in the past knows the value of relevant, detailed information that is valuable to the user. This must now be made visually appealing for the human user and available to the AI in a machine-readable format. Many measures of classic search engine optimization remain valid in the age of artificial intelligence and are relevant for the optimization of store systems for ChatGPT & Co.

Blackbit Offers Know-How, Tools and Services for the E-Commerce of the Future

Blackbit has been successfully advising customers in e-commerce since 1998 and offers them the latest platforms and tools with the associated services.

Prepare your e-commerce today for the AI-driven future - we will show you how your products can be found, understood and purchased by humans and intelligent agents alike. Contact us and discover how we can work together to make your data, processes and systems fit for the era of AI-supported product search and agent-based commerce.