Agentic Commerce: 68% Ready by 2028?

By 2031, autonomous shopping agents could manage over 70% of routine household purchases, radically reshaping how consumers interact with brands and what marketers consider a “purchase journey.” This shift towards agentic commerce promises a future where digital entities, rather than humans, initiate and complete transactions. Is the era of truly autonomous retail closer than we think?

68% of Consumers Express Willingness for AI to Manage Routine Purchases by 2028

A recent survey by Statista indicates that a significant majority of consumers are open to artificial intelligence handling their regular shopping tasks within the next two years. This isn’t just about voice assistants adding items to a list. It points to a deeper acceptance of AI making purchasing decisions independently. From a marketing perspective, this data is jarring. It means the traditional funnel, which relies heavily on human interaction points like website visits, email opens, and social media engagement, will need a fundamental re-evaluation. Our focus has always been on influencing human choice directly. Now, we must consider influencing an algorithm’s choice.

The implication here is deep: if agents are making decisions, brand visibility in a search result or a social feed becomes less about capturing human attention and more about satisfying algorithmic criteria. This requires a strong emphasis on structured data, clear product attributes, and impeccable inventory management. An agent won’t be swayed by a flashy banner ad. It will be driven by efficiency, price, and availability, according to its programmed parameters and learned preferences. Marketers need to start thinking about “agent SEO” now, ensuring their product data is not just human-readable but machine-optimizable.

Only 15% of Brands Currently Have an API-First Strategy for Product Data

Despite the growing consumer readiness for agentic commerce, most brands are critically unprepared for the technical demands. A report by IAB reveals that a mere 15% of companies have adopted an API-first strategy for their product information. This is a glaring disconnect. Agentic commerce hinges on smooth, programmatic access to product catalogs, pricing, and availability. Without strong APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), autonomous agents simply cannot interact with a brand’s offerings effectively.

This isn’t an optional technical upgrade. It’s a foundational requirement for future retail. I routinely see companies investing heavily in front-end user experience, often neglecting the back-end infrastructure that will power the next wave of commerce. An agent needs to query a product’s specifications, compare features, and confirm stock levels all without human intervention. If a brand’s data is locked away in siloed systems or requires manual extraction, it will be invisible to these purchasing agents. Prioritizing API development now means building the digital backbone for agent-driven sales, ensuring products are discoverable and transactable in an increasingly automated marketplace.

Customer Lifetime Value Predicted to Increase by 25% for Brands Embracing Agentic Commerce Early

Early adopters of agentic commerce technologies are projected to see a 25% increase in customer lifetime value (CLV), according to eMarketer. This figure might seem counter-intuitive at first glance. If agents are making decisions, where does loyalty fit in? The answer lies in the programming and initial setup of these agents. Consumers will likely “train” their agents based on past preferences, trusted brands, and established relationships. Once an agent learns to prefer a certain brand of coffee or a specific detergent, it’s less likely to deviate unless there’s a significant disruption in price or availability.

This means the initial brand choice, or the brand chosen during the agent’s “learning phase,” becomes incredibly sticky. Marketers need to understand that building trust and delivering consistent quality now will pay dividends in agent loyalty. The focus shifts from transactional campaigns to fostering deep brand affinity that an agent can interpret and prioritize. Think about it: if an agent is tasked with optimizing for quality and convenience, a brand with a strong reputation and reliable supply chain will be favored over a lesser-known alternative, even if the latter offers a marginal price discount. This is where brand equity truly becomes a quantifiable asset in the agentic era.

Security Concerns Remain a Top Barrier, with 60% of Consumers Citing Data Privacy as a Major Hesitation

While enthusiasm for AI-driven shopping is high, significant hurdles remain, particularly around security and data privacy. A Nielsen report highlights that 60% of consumers express major concerns about their data privacy when considering autonomous agents managing their purchases. This is not a minor issue. It’s a fundamental trust barrier that could slow adoption, regardless of technological advancement. Consumers are already wary of how their data is used, and handing over purchasing autonomy to an AI raises the stakes considerably.

Brands and platform providers must prioritize transparent data governance and strong security protocols. This means clear communication about what data agents collect, how it’s used, and who has access to it. Encryption, multi-factor authentication for agent access, and audit trails for all transactions will not be optional. They will be table stakes. Ignoring these concerns would be a catastrophic mistake, undermining consumer confidence and inviting stringent regulatory oversight. Any system that compromises user data, even inadvertently, will quickly lose favor. Building trust in the agent itself, and the ecosystem it operates within, is just as important as building trust in the products it buys.

Why the “Personalization at Scale” Mantra Misses the Mark for Agentic Commerce

Conventional wisdom in marketing often centers on “personalization at scale,” tailoring experiences to individual consumers based on their browsing history and preferences. While this approach has its merits for direct human engagement, it largely misses the point when discussing agentic commerce. My professional opinion is that focusing too heavily on hyper-personalization for the human user, in the context of an agent-driven future, is a misdirection of resources.

Here’s why: the agent itself becomes the primary “consumer” of information. It needs structured, consistent data, not a emotionally resonant ad copy or a dynamically generated landing page. The agent’s “personalization” is based on its programmed objectives and learned parameters, not on a human’s fleeting emotional state. Instead of crafting thousands of nuanced messages for individual humans, marketers should be optimizing their product data for agent consumption. This means focusing on precise product descriptions, transparent pricing, real-time inventory updates, and clear API documentation. An agent doesn’t need to feel a connection. It needs to execute a task efficiently and reliably. The shift isn’t from one-to-many to one-to-one. It’s from human-to-human to agent-to-agent interaction, with the human setting the high-level goals for their agent. We should be building for machine readability, not just human appeal. This is a fundamental sea change that many in the industry are still struggling to grasp.

The trajectory towards agentic commerce is clear, even if the pace varies. Marketers who invest now in API-first strategies, careful product data management, and unassailable security will be best positioned to thrive when autonomous agents become the dominant force in routine purchasing. The future of retail demands a fundamental re-think of how brands connect with consumers, or rather, with their agents.