Big retailers are committing more heavily to agentic AI-led commerce, and accepting some loss of customer proximity and data control in the process.
\n As reported by Retail Dive, the opening weeks of 2026 have seen Etsy, Target and Walmart push product ranges onto third-party AI platforms, forming new partnerships with Google\u2019s Gemini and Microsoft\u2019s Copilot, after last year\u2019s collaborations with OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT. These let consumers purchase goods inside the AI\u2019s conversation interface.
\n Amazon and Walmart have been investing in their own consumer-facing AI assistants, Rufus and Sparky respectively to change how shoppers interact with their brands.
\n Agentic AI is beginning to redraw direct-to-consumer engagement, and industry figures regard this trend as an important moment in online retail. \u201cI think this has the potential to disrupt retail in the same way the internet once did,\u201d Kartik Hosanagar, a marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, told the website\u2019s reporters.
\n Partnering with AIs like ChatGPT or Gemini engages consumers wherever they happen to be and may choose to shop. Adobe\u2019s 2025 Holiday Shopping report found that AI-driven traffic to US e-commerce sites grew 758% year on year between in November 2025, and Cyber Monday saw a 670% increase in AI-referred retail visits.
\n \u201cWhat we expect is a deepening of consumer engagement,\u201d Katherine Black, a partner at Kearney specialising in food, drug and mass-market retail, said in an email to Retail Dive. \u201cMore shoppers will rely on AI for purchasing, and across a wider range of missions. As retailers\u2019 capabilities within these tools improve, adoption should accelerate further.\u201d
\n Meeting customers on AI platforms comes with trade-offs, according to industry observers, with questions around data ownership and the risk that retailers are sidelined. 81% of retail executives believe generative AI will erode brand loyalty by 2027, according to Deloitte\u2019s 2026 Retail Industry Global Outlook, published earlier this month.
\n Retailers\u2019 websites or apps provide a stream of behavioural data, and if discovery, evaluation, and purchase happen externally, any insight doesn\u2019t reach the retailer. \u201cThis fundamentally changes where power sits,\u201d Hosanagar said. \u201cControl over the agent increasingly means control over the customer relationship.\u201d
\n Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai has unveiled new commerce tools for Gemini, outlining how it will support customers from discovery to final purchase. Nikki Baird, vice president of strategy and product at Aptos, says this raises difficult questions. \u201cWhat he\u2019s describing is Google owning the data across discovery, decision and transaction. Even if some information is shared back, missing context from those stages leaves retailers with a much poorer understanding of their customers.\u201d
\n Pichai reassured retailers collaboration remains central to Google. \u201cFrom nearly three decades of working with retailers, we know success only comes when we work together,\u201d he told an NRF audience. \u201cOur aim is to use our full technology stack to help shape the next era of retail.\u201d
\n Yet agentic systems\u2019 features like instant checkout absorb the shopping experience into one platform. \u201cIf research, discovery and purchase all happen on OpenAI rather than Walmart.com, you\u2019re effectively giving away the brand experience. At that point, the retailer risks becoming little more than a fulfilment operation,\u201d Hosanagar said.
\n Amazon has not announced plans to sell directly through ChatGPT, doubling down on its own AI initiatives. Earlier this month, the company launched a dedicated site for Alexa+, its generative AI assistant that helps users research and plan purchases.
\n Yet participation in third-party AI commerce may become unavoidable. When OpenAI launched its Instant Checkout feature on ChatGPT last September, it suggested that enabling the function could influence how merchants are ranked in search results, in addition to price and product quality. Uploading product catalogues to AI chat platforms may be the first step in a transformation of online retail.
\n According to Deloitte, roughly half of retail executives expect the current multi-stage shopping process to reduce to a single AI-driven interaction by 2027. For now the industry remains at an early stage of any transition. \u201cThe real inflection point is when consumers rely on an autonomous agent to shop on their behalf,\u201d Hosanagar told Retail Dive.
\n \u201cRetailers will engage less with humans directly and more with their representatives \u2014 AI agents. That agent processes information differently, requires data in new formats and responds to persuasion in ways unlike a person.\u201d
\n Today, consumers can access ChatGPT on their phones while in-store, effectively consulting an always-available expert. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the internet in your pocket,\u201d Baird told Retail Dive. \u201cIt\u2019s like having a highly knowledgeable store associate who knows every retailer.\u201d
\n This may prompt retailers to equip frontline staff with their own AI tools, offering instant insight into customer preferences or shopping history. Alternatively, a retailer\u2019s AI agent could proactively notify customers when a favoured item is back in stock, helping associates convert interest into sales. \u201cThe goal is to enable store associates to perform at their best,\u201d Baird said.
\n(Image source: \u201cShopping trauma!\u201d by Elsie esq. is licensed under CC BY 2.0.)
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\nThe post Retailers examine options for on-AI retail appeared first on AI News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Big retailers are committing more heavily to agentic AI-led commerce, and accepting some loss of customer proximity and data control in the process. As reported by Retail Dive, the opening weeks of 2026 have seen Etsy, Target and Walmart push product ranges onto third-party AI platforms, forming new partnerships with Google\u2019s Gemini and Microsoft\u2019s Copilot, [\u2026]<\/p>\n
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