Agentic Commerce Explained: A Plain-English Guide for Store Owners

What is agentic commerce?

Agentic commerce is shopping carried out by an AI agent on a person's behalf. Instead of searching, clicking and comparing by hand, the shopper gives an assistant a goal, such as "find me a waterproof jacket under $150 that arrives by Friday", and the agent goes off to do the work.

The agent visits stores, reads product pages, compares options and reports back. In some cases it goes on to complete the purchase.

How is it different from regular online shopping?

A person looks at a handful of stores, usually ones they already know. An agent has no favourites and no fatigue. It can look at hundreds of stores in the time it takes a person to open a few tabs, and it judges each one by how well it can complete the task.

That changes who gets chosen. Familiar names no longer win just by being familiar. The stores that win are the ones an agent can understand and use quickly.

Why should store owners care now?

The numbers are already large. Salesforce Commerce Cloud reported that AI and agents influenced roughly $67 billion of online sales during Cyber Week ^[1], a measure of influence rather than purchases completed by agents alone. McKinsey & Company projects that autonomous AI agents could handle between $3 trillion and $5 trillion of commerce by 2030 ^[2].

If even a small share of your future customers start their search through an assistant, how your store behaves for agents becomes part of how you are found and chosen.

What do agents need from your store?

In general terms: clear and accurate product information, prices and availability that match what is on the page, pages that load quickly and behave predictably, and a checkout that does not ask for more steps than it needs to.

These are the same things that help human shoppers. Agents are simply less forgiving, because they will not stay around hoping a confusing page makes sense.

How to start preparing

Review your most important journeys, such as finding a product, choosing options and checking out. Try them yourself with an AI assistant and note where it gets stuck. Fix the obvious friction first.

Then talk to us. In our own tests we made AI agents move through websites 40-90% faster, without anyone editing the code. Send us your website from the home page and we will send you a demo of an AI agent using it faster.

FAQ

What is agentic commerce in one sentence?

Shopping done by an AI agent on a person's behalf: it researches, compares and sometimes completes the purchase.

Is agentic commerce already happening?

Yes, at early scale. Salesforce reported AI and agents influenced about $67 billion of Cyber Week 2025 sales ^[1], though that counts influence, not purchases agents completed alone.

Do I need to change my store?

Not dramatically. Accurate product data, clear delivery information, fast pages and a short checkout help both people and agents.

Sources

1. Salesforce Data: AI and Agents Propel Cyber Week to Record $336.6B in Global Spend: Salesforce, 5 December 2025. The $67 billion figure measures sales influenced by AI and agents.
2. The agentic commerce opportunity: McKinsey & Company, October 2025. Its estimate covers goods, not services.