Imagine a world where your best customer never visits your website but still buys from you weekly. That’s the future forming right now.
The traditional search-and-click model is collapsing as intelligent agents take the wheel, making decisions and completing purchases for users.
The foundation of digital commerce is breaking apart and reforming around something new. This is Agentic Commerce, the next defining phase of E-commerce, where AI agents recommend products and carry out transactions for people.
When Search Engine Links Stopped Being Enough
Search engines handed users multiple query-related links and left the choice to the shopper. Intelligent agents give the answer and, when allowed, complete the purchase.
When a shopper asks, “Find me a fall look under $200” or “Restock my pantry for the week,” a single action delivers the result, not a list of sites. Discovery will increasingly depend on how clearly your product data speaks to both machines and humans.
Leading retailers such as Walmart and Kroger are already using agentic shopping experiences to anticipate customer needs and make every purchase feel effortless.
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Two Protocols That Teach Machines Your Catalog
At the center of Agentic Commerce are two practical layers that decide how agents interact with brands: the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) and the Agentic Payments Protocol (AP2).
ACP: Making Product Catalogs Machine Readable
ACP is the digital handshake that lets AI agents “see” and understand your products, not just as images and text, but as structured, contextual data.
It describes products in machine terms: size, color, fit, availability, sustainability score, and price variations by region.
ACP transforms the product catalog into an API-driven knowledge graph that any AI model can query safely and accurately.
AP2: Enabling Agent-Led Payments
If ACP powers discovery, AP2 powers decision.
AP2 defines the secure framework through which AI agents can authenticate users, process payments, and complete transactions on behalf of the shopper, all while maintaining compliance, consent, and privacy.
Together, ACP and AP2 form the commerce layer for agent-driven interactions. Investors and market analysts forecast significant financial shifts driven by intelligent agents.
Discover insights from Salesforce Dreamforce 2025 shaping the future of the agentic enterprise.
The Battleground Moves from Traffic to Integration
In the web era, brands competed for clicks.
In the agent era, they compete for integration.
Forbes projects AI-related retail sales to exceed $9 trillion globally by 2029, signaling how quickly the landscape is evolving.
Agents will decide where to source, compare, and buy based on the accuracy and reliability of a brand’s data feed. Retailers who treat structured commerce data as an afterthought risk fading from view in this new ecosystem.
In other words, if your product metadata isn’t agent-readable, you’re already losing visibility in the next generation of purchase journeys.
Where Retail Should Focus Its Attention
To thrive in agentic commerce, retailers must focus on data, payments, and systems that enable intelligent agents to act with confidence. Key areas to prioritize are:
Structured Product Feeds
Move beyond page-level SEO and invest in ACP-aligned product feeds that expose attributes, pricing, inventory, and fulfillment metadata in real time.
Secure Payment Frameworks
Start planning for AP2-style payment flows where trusted retail APIs can authorize purchases on behalf of verified users.
Retail Media Inside Agent Journeys
Sponsored placements and brand visibility will migrate from web pages to conversational recommendations. Rethink how retail media appears inside an answer rather than on a landing page.
Experience Integration
The winners will be brands with interoperable data ecosystems. This includes POS, CRM, PIM, inventory, and loyalty systems that can natively talk to agents.
Related Insight > The Top SEO Use Cases for AI Agents in 2025
How to Get Agent-Ready? Three Practical Steps.
Getting agent-ready means taking concrete steps to make your product, payment, and loyalty systems agent-friendly:
Step 1: Audit your product feed.
Inventory the attributes agents need, including availability by location, regional pricing, and product identifiers.
Step 2: Map your payment flow.
Identify how customers authenticate and provide consent, then plan APIs for tokenized payments and order confirmations.
Step 3: Integrate loyalty and fulfillment data.
Make points, offers, and delivery windows queryable so an agent can make a confident purchase decision.
Empower Retail Transformation with Tru’s Agentic Commerce.
Contact UsRetail Giants Adopting Agentic Shopping Experiences
Leading retailers are putting agentic commerce into action, making AI-driven shopping experiences real for their customers.
Kroger: Personalized Cart Assistance
Kroger is expanding its partnership with Instacart to bring the “Cart Assistant” AI to its iOS app. The assistant guides customers through meal planning, product discovery, and personalized cart-building, delivering smarter, effortless shopping journeys. (Source: Kroger Investor Relations, 2025)
Frasers Group: European Agentic Commerce Launch
Frasers Group is the first European retailer to deploy the commercetools agentic commerce suite across brands, including Sports Direct, Flannels, and FRASERS. Shoppers can now discover and purchase products through AI-driven channels using the Agentic Commerce Protocol. (Source: Retail Technology Innovation Hub, 2025)
Liverpool: Agentic Commerce in Latin America
Liverpool is connecting product and pricing data to AI shopping platforms like ChatGPT via the Agentic Commerce Protocol. This allows customers to interact with AI agents for discovery and purchase guidance, positioning Liverpool as a Latin American leader in agentic commerce. (Source: PR Newswire, 2025)
Tru and the Agentic Horizon
In our experience, brands that make their systems intelligible to machines secure more of these new purchase paths.
Tru’s work across retail, grocery, and fashion focuses on aligning product data, payment APIs, and loyalty systems so brands can participate when agents act for customers. Preparing now means being chosen later.
In the future of commerce, you will not only optimize for humans, you will design for their agents.
Frequently Asked Questions About Agentic Commerce
Agentic Commerce is a transformative approach to E-commerce where AI agents recommend products, guide discovery, and can execute transactions on behalf of shoppers. It enables smooth, personalized shopping experiences while reducing friction in the buyer journey.
AI agents utilize structured, machine-readable product data, real-time inventory, pricing, and fulfillment details to provide accurate recommendations and support automated purchases, enhancing customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
Agentic Commerce delivers smarter, more intuitive shopping by anticipating user needs, offering tailored recommendations, and simplifying checkout. It transforms shopping from a series of steps into a connected, guided experience.
Businesses should focus on making product data machine-readable, implementing secure payment frameworks, and integrating loyalty and fulfillment information. These measures allow AI agents to make informed recommendations and transact confidently for customers.
