Overview
- Retailers are shifting from search-and-click to conversational, agentic commerce where AI can answer situational questions and act on behalf of shoppers, for example using auto-buy rules and price alerts.
- Amazon is pushing a closed, assistant-led model with Alexa for Shopping that can compare products, track price history, set deal alerts, and automatically purchase eligible items under user rules.
- Walmart is using Google’s Gemini to surface store inventory, membership benefits and local fulfillment inside external conversational layers so its network is visible where consumer intent begins.
- Bank of America reinstated coverage of Shopify and said the company could benefit as an infrastructure provider because its Universal Commerce Platform, Catalog and Sidekick feed AI discovery, inventory and checkout for merchants.
- The move to agentic shopping creates new operational and oversight challenges for merchants and platforms, including accurate product data, real-time local inventory, clear substitution rules, explainable offers, payments that start in conversation, and related disputes, fraud and return risks.