90% of Retailers Are Increasing AI Budgets in 2026: Where the Smart Money Is Going
Where Is Retail AI Money Actually Going? As of January 2026, retail AI investment has matured from experimental pilots to operational infrastructure. According to NVIDIA's third annual State of AI in Retail and CPG survey, 91% of the industry is now actively using or assessing AI, up from 82% just two years ago. The shift from "exploring" to "deploying" is accelerating. The survey reveals three dominant investment categories: Investment Category % of Retailers Prioritizing Primary ROI Dr
74% of Consumers Now Use AI for Shopping: What the Latest Data Means for Your Catalog
TL;DR: Three-quarters of consumers already use AI for shopping, yet most retailers remain invisible to these AI-powered discovery channels. The 805% surge in AI traffic during Black Friday 2025 signals an urgent window: retailers who optimize for AI agents now will capture the $385 billion agentic commerce market by 2030. Those who wait risk becoming background utilities in an agent-controlled marketplace. Here is a startling paradox: 74% of consumers now use AI tools in their shopping journey
Amazon's Buy for Me Controversy: Why Retailers Are Losing Control of Their Catalogs
TL;DR: Amazon's "Buy for Me" feature lists products from third-party websites without merchant permission, turning independent brands into unwitting fulfillment partners. This controversy highlights a fundamental divide in agentic commerce: walled-garden approaches that scrape and sell versus open protocols that require merchant consent. Angie Chua, founder of stationery brand Bobo Design Studio, discovered something unsettling in late December: orders flooding in from an address she had never
UCP vs ACP: Which Agentic Commerce Protocol Should Retailers Choose?
TL;DR: Google launched the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) at NRF 2026, joining Stripe's Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) as the second major open standard for AI shopping. UCP handles the full commerce journey from discovery to post-purchase, while ACP focuses specifically on checkout flows. Most retailers will need both protocols, but infrastructure platforms can eliminate the integration burden. With McKinsey projecting agentic commerce to reach $3-5 trillion globally by 2030, protocol selec
The Retailer's Guide to Agentic Commerce
Executive Summary AI shopping agents are no longer a future consideration-they're processing 50 million shopping queries daily on ChatGPT alone. This guide provides retail executives and e-commerce leaders with a practical framework for capturing this emerging channel. You'll learn: 1. What agentic commerce is and why it matters now 2. The three strategic approaches retailers are taking 3. Protocol landscape and which integrations to prioritize 4. Implementation roadmap from zero to live
AI Visibility: The New SEO
Executive Summary For two decades, retailers have invested heavily in search engine optimization. Rankings, keywords, backlinks-these concepts shaped digital commerce strategy. But a seismic shift is underway. When 50 million people ask ChatGPT for product recommendations every day, traditional SEO is irrelevant. AI agents don't crawl websites or follow PageRank algorithms. They make recommendations based on entirely different criteria-criteria most retailers don't understand and can't current
From Groceries to Everything: What DoorDash's AI Expansion Plans Mean for Local Commerce
TL;DR: DoorDash launched its ChatGPT app on December 17, 2025, creating a branded storefront inside ChatGPT powered by MCP. The company plans to expand "beyond groceries to more local categories." Restaurants, alcohol, and convenience stores are the logical next verticals. Local merchants have a narrow window to prepare their catalogs for conversational commerce before DoorDash becomes the default discovery channel. The race to become the AI-powered local commerce hub just accelerated. On Decem
From Catalog to Conversation: A Tale of Three Christmas Shopping Eras
TL;DR: Christmas shopping has evolved through three delegation eras: the catalog era (2005) where we did everything ourselves, the AI assistant era (2025) where 42% of Gen Z uses ChatGPT for advice, and the autonomous agent era (2030) where AI handles purchases. The shift from "I'll find it" to "just handle it" transforms retail. Picture December 2005. A dog-eared Sears catalog sits on the kitchen counter, pages folded at the corners. You're planning a trip to the mall tomorrow, armed with a ha
$385B by 2030: Why Agentic Commerce Is Retail's Next Mobile Moment
Now let me produce the final revised version addressing the reviewer's feedback: TL;DR: Morgan Stanley projects agentic commerce could capture $385 billion of U.S. e-commerce by 2030. With 23% of Americans already making AI-assisted purchases and grocery leading adoption at 49%, this represents the most significant commerce shift since smartphones put stores in every pocket. When Morgan Stanley publishes a bull case for any emerging technology, Wall Street listens. When that bull case targets
Anthropic Donates MCP to Linux Foundation: What Retailers Must Know Now
TL;DR: On December 9, 2025, Anthropic donated the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to the Linux Foundation's new Agentic AI Foundation—a watershed moment for retail. With 10,000+ MCP servers active, 97 million monthly SDK downloads, and platinum backing from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI, MCP just became the neutral infrastructure layer for AI commerce. Retailers integrating now gain first-mover advantage as AI agents increasingly control product discovery and purchasing. What Just Happene
Instacart's ChatGPT Launch: How MCP+ACP Power the First Embedded Grocery Checkout
TL;DR: On December 8, 2025, Instacart became the first grocery company to let you go from "help me plan dinner" to checkout—all inside ChatGPT. No app switching. No cart abandonment. Just 1,800+ retailers and 2 billion products available in a single conversation, powered by the Model Context Protocol (MCP) for app integration and the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) for checkout. For retailers still debating strategy, this is the clearest signal yet: the window is closing. What Makes the Instac
Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal's Q4 2025 Moves Into Agentic Commerce: What Retailers Must Know
On September 29, 2025, Mastercard completed the first live agentic payment transaction. Not a pilot. Not a simulation. An actual AI agent purchased a product using a tokenized credential, fundamentally changing what's possible in commerce. Two weeks later, Visa launched its Trusted Agent Protocol on GitHub. PayPal, meanwhile, partnered with three different AI platforms in three months. The payment networks aren't waiting for agentic commerce to arrive. They're building it. TL;DR: Visa, Masterca
Etsy's Million-Seller AI Bet: How the Craft Marketplace Became an Instant Checkout Pioneer
TL;DR: Etsy became the first major marketplace to enable ChatGPT Instant Checkout for all U.S. sellers in September 2025, putting over 5 million creative entrepreneurs at the forefront of agentic commerce. With 20% of referral traffic already coming from ChatGPT, Etsy's early-mover advantage could reshape how consumers discover handmade and unique products. When OpenAI flipped the switch on ChatGPT Instant Checkout in September 2025, Etsy sellers across America became overnight pioneers in a co
How SKIMS and Vuori Are Preparing for AI-First Shopping
When OpenAI announced ChatGPT Instant Checkout would expand to 1M+ Shopify merchants, several brands stood out among the named partners: SKIMS, Vuori, and Glossier. These digitally-native brands are positioning themselves at the front of a wave that saw 805% year-over-year growth in AI-driven traffic on Black Friday 2025. TL;DR: SKIMS, Vuori, and Glossier are among the first digitally-native brands to go live with ChatGPT Instant Checkout via Shopify's partnership with OpenAI. With AI agent tra
Salesforce Confirms AI Agents Hit 20% of Cyber Week Orders—The Tipping Point Has Arrived
Salesforce released its official Cyber Week 2025 data on December 5, and the numbers are staggering: AI agents influenced $67 billion in global sales, representing 20% of all orders. This is no longer a pilot program or a future trend. Agentic commerce has arrived at scale. TL;DR: Salesforce data confirms AI agents drove $67 billion in Cyber Week sales (20% of all orders). Retailers with AI agents saw 7x higher sales growth (13% vs 2%) compared to those without. The era of optional AI adoption
The Complete Guide to AI Commerce for Fashion and Lifestyle Retailers
Fashion retail is entering a new era. AI agent traffic surged 805% year-over-year on Black Friday 2025, and $67 billion in Cyber Week sales were influenced by AI agents. For fashion and lifestyle brands, the question is no longer whether to prepare for AI-first shopping, but how quickly you can adapt. TL;DR: AI agents now influence 20% of all e-commerce orders. Fashion leaders like SKIMS, Glossier, and Vuori are already live on ChatGPT Instant Checkout. Retailers must choose between ACP and AP2