November 05, 2026

The next storefront is an AI Shopping Agent

Bruno da Silva Oliveira

Global Head of Data & Agentic Commerce

Why merchants will compete for AI recommendations - and why trusted commerce infrastructure will determine who wins.

The relationship between merchants and customers is set to change once again. Increasingly, AI will act as the intermediary, helping customers discover products, compare options and complete purchases.

The future may arrive sooner than many merchants expect. Although generative AI has only been widely available for the past four years, almost 40% of European consumers already use it to research products and help decide what to buy. This is only expected to grow, with $3-5 trillion in global business-to-consumer retail revenue flowing through agentic commerce models by 2030.

AI and agentic commerce will fundamentally change how people shop. Instead of manually moving between search engines, marketplaces and merchant websites themselves, customers will rely on AI to evaluate options and complete purchases on their behalf.

As the technology matures, agents will take on more of the shopping journey. They might monitor prices, buy an item once it becomes available, reorder household essentials or assemble an entire holiday within a defined budget. Customers set the intention and the boundaries; the agent carries out the work.

While exciting for consumers, it presents a new challenge for merchants. For the first time, they have two audiences: people and LLMs. That means preparing not only product information, but also the commerce and payment infrastructure that allows agents to complete purchases securely and reliably.

Earning the recommendation

Merchants have always competed for attention. In the digital age, that meant investing in search rankings, digital advertising, intuitive websites and frictionless checkouts. However, as agents become the gateway between a customer and the market, merchants will increasingly compete for something else: an AI recommendation.

There are likely to be two broad routes into this new environment. Open-market agents will aggregate products from multiple sources, compare prices and features, and potentially complete a transaction without requiring the customer to visit each merchant’s website. Brand shopping agents will operate within a merchant’s own channels, using information such as purchase history, inventory and loyalty data to deliver a more personalised experience.

Whichever model is used, the criteria for merchant selection will change. An agent won’t be influenced by an attractive homepage alone. It will assess whether a product matches the customer’s request, the order can be fulfilled under the preferred conditions, and the merchant can support a reliable transaction.

This makes structured commerce data a bigger advantage than ever. Product titles, specifications, pricing, promotions, stock levels and delivery information must be accurate, current and presented in formats machines can interpret. While a catalogue may be clear to a human shopper, an agent must be able to distinguish between product variants, understand eligibility conditions and calculate the final cost without ambiguity.

Inventory quality matters for the same reason. An agent that recommends an unavailable product or promises an unrealistic delivery date undermines the customer’s trust in both the agent and the merchant. Businesses with reliable, real-time information will be far easier for agents to recommend with confidence.

In many ways, AI readiness could become as important as search engine optimisation (SEO) was during the growth of online search. But unlike SEO, succeeding in agentic commerce isn't just about being visible. Merchants need to ensure the systems behind the purchase, from inventory to payments, is ready for the agent to act on a customer’s behalf. If pricing, payment, authentication or fulfilment systems can't support an autonomous transaction, even the best recommendation may never become a sale.

Creating eCommerce ecosystems that agents can trust

With such significant revenue at stake, companies are increasingly investing in their agentic capabilities. Between 10% and 15% of enterprise IT budgets are expected to be allocated to agentic AI initiatives, while half of companies say they would work with autonomous agents to improve efficiency and personalisation.

Improving machine-readable data is only the first step. Agentic commerce ultimately succeeds or fails at the point of transaction. Once an agent has selected a product, it must be able to verify pricing and availability, authenticate the customer, complete a payment and confirm the order without unnecessary friction. Without those connections, an agent can recommend products, but it cannot reliably sell them. This is where merchants should focus their preparations.

Creating a functioning eCommerce ecosystem also hinges on trust. Agentic commerce will only scale if customers and merchants can trust the identities, instructions and transactions involved. A merchant needs to know that an agent is legitimate, that it has authority to act for the customer and that the transaction reflects the customer’s agreed intent. The customer, meanwhile, needs confidence that the agent will remain within the limits they have set.

Many of today's trust checks were designed for human shoppers, and won’t always work when the buyer is a machine. As AI agents begin acting on customers' behalf, merchants will need new ways to establish that same trust. Capabilities such as agent identity, tokenisation, verifiable records of customer consent and continuous fraud monitoring will become essential to ensuring transactions remain secure, authorised and compliant.

Finally, interoperability is essential, particularly for merchants offering cross-border commerce. Shopping agents will need to communicate with different merchants, payment methods, data sources and technology platforms. Emerging protocols and standards will provide common ways for these systems to exchange information and instructions, making agentic commerce easier to scale.

Agent-led shopping is coming. Are you prepared?

Agentic commerce is a commerce infrastructure challenge.

Getnet’s perspective is shaped by its position at the intersection of payments, merchant services and commerce infrastructure. Agentic commerce is not just a standalone AI experience, but an ecosystem challenge which requires trusted connections between merchant catalogues, operational data, payments, identity, authentication and fraud prevention. The real challenge isn't building a Shopping Agent. It's orchestrating everything behind it.

That infrastructure layer is what turns customer intent into a completed transaction. It enables agents to access accurate data, verify availability, authenticate purchases and process a payment securely. It also helps merchants participate across different agentic platforms without rebuilding their commerce operation for each one.

For merchants, getting ahead means building foundations that can support multiple routes to the customer. Improving catalogue quality, strengthening inventory visibility, connecting operational systems and investing in trusted payment infrastructure will make a business easier for AI agents to understand, trust and transact with.

Each major shift in commerce has created a new route between customer intent and purchase. Shopping agents will shorten that journey, quickly turning a customer’s request into a completed transaction with minimal human interaction.

The future of shopping will reward businesses that can combine human appeal with machine-readable commerce, ensuring their products are chosen by people and agents alike. The businesses that prepare early for agentic commerce will become the merchants AI chooses first.

Getnet helps connect foundations and enable your business to participate as agent-led shopping moves into the mainstream. We orchestrate the agents, protocols and payment flows behind every interaction. From discoverability and customer engagement to transactions and business intelligence, we enable merchants to participate in the next generation of commerce with confidence. The result is a smarter, connected commerce experience where AI interactions become trusted transactions and measurable business outcomes.