Large retailers are focusing more than ever on agent-based, AI-driven commerce, accepting some loss of customer proximity and data control in the process.
As Retail Dive reported, in the first few weeks of 2026, Etsy, Target, and Walmart formed new partnerships with Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot to push a variety of products to third-party AI platforms, following on from their partnership with OpenAI’s ChatGPT last year. These allow consumers to purchase products within an AI conversational interface.
Amazon and Walmart are investing in their consumer-facing AI assistants Rufus and Sparky, respectively, to change how shoppers interact with their brands.
Agentic AI is beginning to reimagine direct consumer engagement, and industry observers believe this trend is a key moment in online retail. “I think this has the potential to disrupt retail in the same way that the Internet once did,” Kartik Hosanagar, a marketing professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, told reporters on the website.
By partnering with AI like ChatGPT and Gemini, we empower consumers to make shopping choices wherever they are. According to Adobe’s 2025 Holiday Shopping Report, AI-driven traffic to U.S. e-commerce sites grew 758% year over year through November 2025, and Cyber Monday saw a 670% increase in AI-driven retail visits.
“What we are looking forward to is deeper engagement with consumers,” Kathryn Black, a partner at Kearney specializing in food, pharmaceutical and mass retail, said in an email to Retail Dive. “More shoppers will rely on AI for purchases and a wide range of tasks. As retailers become more capable with these tools, adoption should accelerate further.”
Industry insiders say meeting customers on AI platforms comes with tradeoffs, raising questions about data ownership and the risk of alienating retailers. According to Deloitte’s Global Retail Outlook 2026 released earlier this month, 81% of retail executives believe generative AI will undermine brand loyalty by 2027.
Retailer websites and apps provide streams of behavioral data, but when discovery, evaluation, and purchase occur externally, none of the insights reach the retailer. “This fundamentally changes the locus of power,” Hosanagar said. “Controlling your agents means controlling your customer relationships.”
Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai announced new commerce tools for Gemini, outlining how they will support customers from discovery to final purchase. Nicky Baird, vice president of strategy and products at Aptos, says this poses a difficult problem. “What he’s explaining is that Google owns the data from discovery to decision-making to transaction. Even if some information is shared back, the lack of context at those stages leaves retailers with a much weaker understanding of their customers.”
Pichai reassured that collaboration with retailers remains at the heart of Google. “Having worked with retailers for nearly 30 years, I know that success only comes when we work together,” he told the NRF audience. “Our goal is to leverage our entire technology stack to help shape the next era of retail.”
But agent system features like instant checkout absorb the shopping experience into one platform. “If all the research, discovery, and purchasing happens with OpenAI instead of Walmart.com, you are essentially giving up the brand experience, and at that point, the retailer risks becoming just another fulfillment operation,” Hosanagar said.
Amazon has not announced plans to sell directly through ChatGPT or to ramp up its own AI efforts. Earlier this month, the company launched a dedicated site for Alexa+, a generative AI assistant that helps users with research and purchase planning.
But third-party participation in AI commerce may be inevitable. When OpenAI launched its instant checkout feature on ChatGPT last September, it suggested that enabling the feature could affect a seller’s ranking in search results, in addition to price and product quality. Uploading your product catalog to an AI chat platform could be the first step in transforming online retail.
According to Deloitte, nearly half of retail executives expect today’s multi-step shopping process to be reduced to a single AI-driven interaction by 2027. For now, the industry is still in the early stages of transition. “The real tipping point is when consumers rely on autonomous agents to shop for them,” Hosanagar told Retail Dive.
“Retailers will engage less directly with humans and more with their representative AI agents, who process information differently, require new forms of data, and respond to persuasion differently than humans.”
Now, consumers can access ChatGPT on their mobile phones while in-store, effectively consulting with experts who are available at any time. “It’s not just the internet in your pocket,” Baird told Retail Dive. “It’s like having a knowledgeable sales associate who knows every retailer.”
This could lead retailers to equip their front-line staff with proprietary AI tools that can instantly understand customer preferences and shopping history. Or a retailer’s AI agent could proactively notify customers when their favorite products are back in stock, helping store associates convert interest into sales. “The goal is to enable our associates to perform at their best,” Baird said.
(Image source: “Shopping Trauma!” by Elsie esq. is licensed under CC BY 2.0.)
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