Agentic commerce

Agentic commerce is the umbrella term for the emerging category where AI agents replace search boxes and product-listing pages as the primary shopping interface. A shopper asks an AI agent a question — "what's the best non-toxic frying pan under $200?" — and the agent handles discovery (which products match), recommendation (which to surface first), and increasingly transaction (completing the purchase inside the agent conversation).

The category spans seven distinct infrastructure layers, from the AI surface itself down through protocols, payments, checkout execution, discovery, and trust. Most vendors operate on one or two layers; a small number bridge three.

Agentic commerce is distinct from ecommerce (shopper-driven browsing on a website), search commerce (Google Shopping ads), and marketplace commerce (Amazon, Etsy). What separates it: the agent is doing the shopper's work, which changes how brands need to be discoverable, how they need to communicate value, and how they need to close the sale.