Guiding Retailers Into the Agentic Commerce Era
Shoptalk 2026, brought global leaders in artificial intelligence (AI) and retail together to explore the future of commerce. In a live podcast at the event, EPAM’s Brian Gilmore, Global Head of Commerce GTM; Google Cloud’s Kapil Dabi, Americas Market Lead, Global Industries & Solutions, Retail & Consumer; Commerce’s Sharon Gee, SVP of Product, AI & Feedonomics; and PayPal’s Nixon Dinh, Director of Product, Agentic Commerce; joined host Katie Street on Marketing in the Madness to discuss how agentic AI is transforming commerce today and what retailers needs to do to be prepared.
Agentic commerce is fundamentally changing the entire consumer journey, including how shoppers discover, compare and purchase products online. Artificial intelligence agents are now central to the shopping journey, streamlining the process and raising customer expectations. As this transformation accelerates, retailers must adapt quickly to remain competitive.
Imagine a new set of high-speed railways being built across the retail landscape; this is the impact of agentic commerce. Where shoppers once navigated winding roads and made many stops along the way, AI agents now deliver them directly to their destinations, matching needs with products in record time. For businesses, this means the old maps no longer suffice, and the ability to connect swiftly and seamlessly is the new competitive edge.
Agents Are Changing the Shopping Journey
As Dabi explains, agentic commerce is fundamentally different from traditional shopping. “One of the fundamental things is that agents do not browse like humans, agents match. This is the fundamental philosophical difference between the shopping which will happen by humans versus agents. And they're compressing the gap between the product discovery all the way to checkout.”
Data Powers Discovery
One critical aspect for brands to be discoverable and competitive in agentic channels, Gee explains, is the importance of structured, high-quality data. “If you do not have that data in a consolidated way for the AI to remember in the first place, you're never going to be able to answer the question, ‘is this Dell laptop good for this one or that one?’ ... When we think about what kind of experiences in an agentic world does a brand need to think about, it's to be discoverable on the channels where your shoppers are.”
Meeting Customers Where They Are
As Gilmore explains, there is a common challenge for retailers: how to adapt to agentic commerce without losing their brand identity or customer relationships. “When clients come to EPAM, there's always this confusion about, ‘Where do we start,’” Gilmore says. “It's important to know that it's not an either/or conversation. You have to go and meet your customer in all of those places.”
Flexible Integration, Not Disruption
Gilmore also emphasizes that retailers do not need to overhaul their entire infrastructure to participate in agentic commerce. With a composable architecture, brands can take advantage of new developments and features, such as Google’s recently unveiled Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), which can greatly accelerate a retailers’ agentic journey. “You do have to do it in an enterprise manner, in a way that maintains your brand, but there is a lot of flexibility in how to get to market quickly and then to create the feedback loop,” Gilmore notes. “You just don't want to take 12-months to get there and spend millions of dollars to figure that out. You want to work with your partners and course correct very quickly if that doesn't pay off for you.”
The solution, Gilmore says, is an approach that emphasizes the importance of having a partner to navigate the evolving AI landscape. By augmenting and enhancing existing capabilities through collaboration with an experienced partner, retailers can supplement internal teams with specialized expertise, expedite project timelines and achieve improved business outcomes.
Engaging with a knowledgeable partner ultimately enables organizations to remain agile and realize the full potential of agentic commerce. This collaborative strategy enables brands to pursue innovation confidently while preserving the quality of the customer experience.
Establishing Trust for Agentic Advantage
While there has been tremendous progress made already in agentic commerce, the experts agree that the future holds even more potential. As Dinh notes, both consumers and merchants will likely use AI agents to handle transactions on their behalf, utilizing current Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB) verification benchmarks to confirm identities and maintain security.
“We generally see that everyone will probably have an agent, both sellers and buyers. And the extension of these [KYC and KYB] checks will go beyond to the agent. And every agent should represent an entity, whether it's a human or a business,” Nixon says.
This means that every AI agent participating in commerce should be clearly linked to a real person or business, ensuring trust, accountability and security in automated transactions but also allowing for the possibility of increased autonomy. Brands that can establish repeatable trust in the agentic era will be poised for maximum competitive advantage.
The Agentic Era Has Already Begun
Agentic commerce is moving fast, and brands that embrace these changes now will be best positioned for future success. By focusing on data, integration and customer experience, retailers can confidently navigate this new era of intelligent shopping.
To learn more about agentic commerce and how EPAM can help your business, watch the full recording and connect with EPAM today.
