What is Agentic Commerce?

The evolution follows a clear progression. Traditional search gave consumers links to explore. AI powered search gave consumers synthesized answers. Agentic commerce gives the AI the ability to act on those answers. The consumer sets an intent, something like “find me a moisturizer for dry skin under $40 from a clean beauty brand,” and the agent handles the rest.

This is not speculative. McKinsey estimates that agentic commerce could orchestrate $3 trillion to $5 trillion in transactions globally by 2030. OpenAI launched Operator in January 2025, an agent integrated into ChatGPT that automates tasks like booking travel and making restaurant reservations. More recently, OpenAI announced an Agentic Commerce Protocol developed with Stripe that allows consumers to complete purchases entirely within ChatGPT without leaving the conversation.

Perplexity launched Buy with Pro in late 2024, enabling direct purchasing from within its AI search interface. Shopify has integrated with OpenAI so that merchants' products surface naturally in ChatGPT shopping conversations. The infrastructure for agent led purchasing is being built in public, quarter by quarter.

The shift is already measurable at the discovery layer. Adobe Digital Insights reports that AI driven traffic to United States retail sites grew 4,700% year over year as of July 2025. Salesforce estimated that AI tools influenced over 20% of all online retail sales globally during the 2025 holiday season. Euromonitor International projects that AI powered search will influence over $595 billion in retail ecommerce by 2028.

These numbers reflect AI mediated discovery, the layer just before agentic purchasing. As AI models move from recommending products to purchasing them, the brands that are visible and accurately represented in AI responses today will be the ones agents select tomorrow. The brands that are invisible or inaccurately represented will be excluded from transactions they never even knew existed.

The first layer is discoverability. Before an AI agent can purchase your product, it needs to know your brand exists. This is the domain of Generative Engine Optimization. Does the AI mention your brand when a consumer asks about your category? Does it describe your products accurately? Does it position you favorably relative to competitors? Discoverability is the foundation that everything else depends on.

The second layer is accuracy. An AI agent making a purchasing decision needs correct, current information about your products, pricing, availability, shipping, and return policies. If your website has outdated pricing or incomplete product specifications, the agent will either skip your brand or make errors that damage the customer experience. Structured data on your website, particularly schema.org product markup with pricing, availability, and detailed attributes, gives AI agents the machine readable information they need to transact reliably.

The third layer is transactability. This is where emerging protocols come into play. OpenAI's Agentic Commerce Protocol and Stripe's integration enable AI agents to complete checkout within a conversation. Anthropic's Model Context Protocol allows AI systems to interact directly with external services and data sources. For a brand to be fully ready for agentic commerce, its products need to be not just discoverable and accurately described, but technically accessible to AI agents through these evolving standards.

Most brands today are still working on the first layer. That is the right place to start.

The transition to agentic commerce will not happen overnight, but the brands that prepare now will have a structural advantage. The immediate priority is ensuring your brand is visible and accurately represented in AI generated responses. Query the major AI models with the same questions your customers ask. Audit your website for structured data completeness. Ensure your product information is detailed, current, and machine readable.

Beyond your own website, monitor how AI models represent your brand relative to competitors. The brands that AI agents will select are the ones that appear most frequently, most accurately, and most favorably in AI generated responses today. The competitive dynamics of agentic commerce will be shaped long before agents are making the majority of purchasing decisions.

Galderma offers an early example. Brands that are proactively optimizing their web presence for AI discovery are already seeing measurable results, and they are building the foundation for a future where AI agents do not just recommend their products but purchase them.