For decades, digital commerce has been defined by infrastructure choices: monolith vs. composable, API vs. integration, cloud-native vs. on-prem. These decisions determined how fast companies could adapt, how well they could scale, and how consistently they could deliver across channels.
But a new inflection point is here. Commerce is moving from being programmed to being orchestrated.
The driver? Agentic AI – a class of autonomous “agents” that can perceive, decide, and act across enterprise systems.
The signals are unmistakable:
- OpenAI expanding into agent ecosystems
- Stripe embedding agents into payments
- Shopify exposing MCP servers
Together, they point to one truth: the commerce of tomorrow will not be run by static systems, but by agents that think, act, and deliver at scale.
For CXOs, the urgent question is clear: Are we ready for commerce that runs itself?
What Is Agentic AI & Why It Matters for Commerce
Agentic AI isn’t another buzzword for smarter chatbots. It represents a fundamental leap: AI systems moving beyond prediction into autonomous execution.
Unlike traditional models, agents can:
- Interpret customer intent from natural language queries
- Decide what action to take based on context and rules
- Execute across multiple systems (commerce, ERP, CRM, logistics)
- Learn from outcomes to improve future performance
This matters because it changes the unit of value. Instead of helping humans do tasks faster, agents do the tasks themselves.
For commerce leaders, this isn’t just efficiency. It’s about removing friction, unlocking scalability, and elevating customer trust.
Why Now? The Timing Behind the Shift
Two converging forces make agentic commerce a now-or-never conversation.
1. Technology Readiness
The emergence of the Model Context Protocol (MCP), now adopted by OpenAI, Anthropic, and others, creates a universal gateway for agents to access enterprise systems safely. Instead of exposing raw APIs (and risking IP, costs, and inconsistency), brands can expose capabilities in clean, abstracted ways.
Meanwhile, Stripe is embedding agents into the most sensitive part of commerce – payments. If checkout and fraud orchestration can be agent-driven, the trust barrier for broader adoption has been lowered.
2. Market Urgency
Younger consumers already start their journeys on ChatGPT, Perplexity, or voice assistants. If your commerce stack isn’t agent-ready, your products won’t even show up in their buying journey.
As Sana Remekie says in the webinar, “You want to catch the wave, not get crushed by it.”
Agents as Builders of Commerce
We are entering a phase where the act of shopping will no longer revolve around screens and search bars, but around intelligent agents that anticipate intent, act autonomously, and deliver outcomes seamlessly.
From Rule-Based to Context-Aware
Legacy commerce workflows are rule-based and deterministic. They work in predictable scenarios but collapse under nuance.
Agents excel in ambiguity and creativity. They can interpret conversational intent (“Find me a dress for my sister’s wedding”) and map it to inventory across multiple brands, something no rules engine could manage efficiently.
The Three Roles of Agents
1. Customer Experience Orchestrators
- Conversational shopping assistants that unify fragmented digital journeys.
- Personalized discovery and promotions delivered in real time.
2. Operational Executors
- Agents that coordinate complex back-office workflows (tax, inventory, loyalty, logistics).
- They replace brittle, custom-coded integrations with adaptive orchestration.
3. Decision Collaborators
- Agents augment leadership decisions in pricing, replenishment, or promotions.
- They move organizations from reactive adjustments to proactive strategies.
Governance and Control: Balancing Innovation with Risk
For most businesses, the central concern with agentic AI is clear: if we hand over workflows to autonomous systems, do we lose control of our brand, compliance, and customer trust?
The answer is “No” if adoption is governed intelligently. The key is to strike the right balance: allow agents to handle ambiguity and intent, while ensuring businesses retain deterministic control over execution.
That balance rests on three principles:
1. Limit Exposure
- Agents should interact with capabilities, not raw systems.
- For example: expose a “product discovery” function, not the underlying Elastic search queries.
2. Ensure Auditability
- Every agent request, decision, and action should be logged and observable.
- This creates transparency, accountability, and the ability to intervene quickly if things go wrong.
3. Apply Guardrails
- Use AI for interpreting customer intent, but tie execution to deterministic rules defined by the business.
- This ensures consistency in customer experience and protects brand integrity.
This hybrid model (agentic intelligence plus deterministic control) is what keeps innovation bold yet safe: compliant with regulations, aligned with brand standards, and trusted by both customers and leadership.
Building AI Readiness: The Roadmap
Becoming agentic isn’t about plastering AI everywhere. It’s about architectural and cultural readiness.
Step 1: Inventory Capabilities
List what’s already exposed (search, checkout, loyalty, returns). Ask: Can these be made agent-accessible safely?
Step 2: Build Orchestration Layers
Introduce an agent-facing API layer that abstracts backend complexity and protects IP.
Step 3: Ensure Observability & Governance
Every agent action should be logged, auditable, and monitored for performance.
Step 4: Start with Safe Experiments
Pilot agents in low-risk use cases like conversational product discovery before scaling to payments or fulfillment.
Step 5: Prepare for Discoverability
Just as SEO shaped the web era, MCP registries will shape the agent era. If your brand isn’t agent-discoverable, you’re invisible to the next generation of buyers.
“The introduction of the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) isn’t just about being found in ChatGPT. It’s about how your brand shows up in those channels. Merchants shouldn’t fear this change; they should see it as an opportunity. ACP gives brands control over how their products are discovered and how he checkout experience is executed. That means you can protect what makes your business unique while opening up entirely new paths to customers. The brands that embrace this shift early will be the ones that agents recommend, and shoppers trust.”
-Sana Remekie, CEO, Conscia | Agentic AI Expert
What CXOs Should Ask Themselves
Agentic commerce isn’t a distant horizon. It’s already reshaping how value is created, delivered, and governed. For leaders, the challenge is not whether to explore it, but how to prioritize and prepare for it. That requires asking the right questions across three dimensions: value, architecture, and readiness.
1. Value Creation
- Where will agents deliver the most measurable impact first: customer service deflection, checkout optimization, or personalized journeys?
2. Architectural Flexibility
- Is our commerce stack composable and fast to orchestrate, or are we still tied to a monolith that limits agility?
- Do we have the observability and governance to prevent black-box risks and ensure trust?
3. Organizational Readiness
- Are we building orchestration engineering skills: software, data, and governance expertise, or are we relying on “AI hype”?
- How does our AI readiness score compare to that of our competitors, and are we moving quickly enough to stay ahead?
These are not abstract questions. They are strategic guardrails for navigating an inflection point that will determine which enterprises scale with agents, and which get left behind.
The Future: Commerce Without Clicks
The next wave of commerce won’t be driven by screens, clicks, or search bars. It will be orchestrated by agents, always-on digital counterparts that act on intent in real time. Within just two to three years, everyday scenarios could look like this:
- For consumers: A shopper simply says, “Find the latest AirPods near me, add them to cart, and hold for payment authorization.” The agent compares availability, checks preferences, and completes the task, no browsing required.
- For small businesses: An SMB agent monitors inventory levels across suppliers and automatically triggers replenishment orders, negotiating delivery windows and terms on behalf of the owner.
- For enterprises: A global retailer deploys shopping and loyalty agents that seamlessly connect in-store, online, and social touchpoints, creating a truly unified omnichannel experience.
The common thread? No clicks. No searches. No silos. Just commerce built by agents that understand intent, act autonomously, and deliver outcomes seamlessly.
This isn’t a futuristic fantasy; it’s a strategic inevitability. The question isn’t whether agentic commerce will redefine customer engagement, but whether your enterprise will be ready when it does.
The OpenAI + Stripe Signal
The clearest sign that agentic AI is moving from hype to reality comes from two recent developments (September 29, 2025): OpenAI’s expansion into agent ecosystems and Stripe’s integration of agents into payment workflows. Not to forget Shopify’s earlier announcement in March 2025 about exposing its MCP servers.
OpenAI is shaping the foundation by enabling agents that can interact with enterprise systems through standards like MCP. Stripe is proving the application by deploying agents in the most sensitive areas of commerce: checkout, fraud prevention, and reconciliation. Together, they mark a tipping point. If agents can be trusted with the flow of money, they can also be trusted with the rest of the commerce value chain: product discovery, loyalty programs, cross-channel personalization, and beyond.
Two strategic implications are clear:
- Trust is validated. Agents have crossed the credibility threshold; they’re no longer experimental add-ons, but viable operators in mission-critical workflows.
- The ecosystem is aligning. With OpenAI and Stripe leading the charge, platforms like Shopify, Salesforce, and Adobe will quickly follow, pushing agentic commerce into the core stack.
The message is unmistakable: agentic commerce is no longer an experiment. It is fast becoming infrastructure.
Conclusion: From Wave to Foundation
Agentic AI is not a passing trend. With OpenAI, Stripe, and Shopify embedding it into their core infrastructure, the wave is here.
The winners will be those who:
- Catch the wave early
- Build composable, governed architectures
- Treat agents not as tools, but as teammates
Because the future of commerce won’t be built by static systems. It will be built by agents that think, act, and deliver.
