Your Next Customer Isn't Human
Agentic Commerce is there, and your brand must be ready!
Earlier this year I argued that the concept of a monolithic app was dying, replaced by AI agents that do things for us. One of those predictions is already unfolding: those agents are about to start shopping. And they will not shop the way your customers do.
The plumbing is already being laid
This is actually unfolding as we speak. The biggest names in the game are building the building blocks right now:
OpenAI and Stripe launched “Buy it in ChatGPT” and open-sourced the Agentic Commerce Protocol, so an agent can complete a purchase inside the chat.
Visa rolled out a Trusted Agent Protocol to tell real shopping agents apart from bots, and now expects millions of people to buy through AI agents by this holiday season.
Mastercard shipped Agent Pay. And Square just added a ChatGPT app and a Claude plugin so merchants can show up, and sell, inside AI chat.
And it’s not theoretical: Shopify reported that AI-referred orders grew almost 13x year over year in Q1.
The honest part: we are still early
Let’s be clear-eyed. Bain found that 72% of US consumers have used AI, but only 24% are comfortable letting it actually buy something. Trust, fraud, and “who is liable when the agent gets it wrong” are all unsolved. This is a multi-year build, not a done deal.
But the prize is why everyone is racing: McKinsey estimates agentic commerce could orchestrate $3 to $5 trillion of global retail spend by 2030. When the payment networks and the model makers all move at once, it’s worth paying attention before it’s obvious.
Why you should care today
When an agent shops, it behaves nothing like a human. It doesn’t scroll, browse, or get charmed by your homepage. It narrows thousands of options down to a few, then hands those few to its user. If it cannot find, read and trust your product data, you are simply not on the list. You don’t lose the sale, you never enter the running.
The product page is being rewritten in machine-readable language, and most brands still only speak human.
Two moves, now
Get discoverable by agents. Clean, structured product data, real-time stock, pricing and returns. Treat “generative engine optimization” (GEO) the way you treated SEO fifteen years ago: the brands that show up in the agent’s shortlist win, the rest are invisible.
Get transactable by agents. The checkout rails already exist. Being buyable inside ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini will soon be essential, not an edge.
Put simply: your “agent experience” is becoming as important as your customer experience. The brands that design for the agent, not just the human, are the ones that will get picked.
The question isn’t whether AI agents will shop for your customers. It’s whether they’ll find you when they do.
Which side are you preparing for? Reply here or find me on LinkedIn. Let’s discuss.
Sources
My earlier piece, “The Apps Are Dead, Long Live the Apps!”: https://open.substack.com/pub/gimbalcube/p/the-apps-are-dead-long-live-the-apps
OpenAI — Buy it in ChatGPT + Agentic Commerce Protocol: https://openai.com/index/buy-it-in-chatgpt/
Stripe — Instant Checkout in ChatGPT, ACP open standard: https://stripe.com/newsroom/news/stripe-openai-instant-checkout
Visa — Trusted Agent Protocol, secure agent-initiated transactions: https://usa.visa.com/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases.releaseId.21961.html
Mastercard — Agent Pay for Machines: https://www.mastercard.com/us/en/news-and-trends/press/2026/june/mastercard-launches-agent-pay-for-machines.html
Square — ChatGPT app + Claude plugin for sellers: https://agilebrandguide.com/yesterdays-marketing-technology-ai-news-july-5-2026/
Shopify — AI-referred orders grew ~13x YoY (Q1 2026), GEO playbook: https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/blog/generative-engine-optimization
Bain — 72% used AI, only 24% comfortable buying with it: https://www.bain.com/insights/agentic-ai-commerce-hinges-on-consumer-trust/
McKinsey QuantumBlack — agentic commerce could orchestrate $3–5T of retail spend by 2030: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/the-agentic-commerce-opportunity-how-ai-agents-are-ushering-in-a-new-era-for-consumers-and-merchants
PwC — can AI agents find your brand? (”agent experience”): https://www.pwc.com/us/en/technology/alliances/library/agentic-commerce-discoverability.html
If only 24% of consumers trust AI to make purchases, where are Shopify’s 13x AI-referred orders coming from…Either that 24% is wildly overactive, or “trust AI for purchases” is measuring something different from “let an agent add this specific item to my cart.”