AI commerce blog
Agentic Commerce Product Data: Why Structure Wins
AI shopping agents consistently chose the more expensive product - because it had clean structured data. That's the finding from a controlled experiment published by O'Reilly last week. Even when the cheaper alternative led with polished marketing copy, agents ignored it. With ChatGPT visual shopping now live for 900 million weekly users as of March 25, 2026, your products are being evaluated on the same terms, every day, at scale. Agentic commerce product data optimization is the practice of
How Nike Wins When You Ask AI for Sneakers
By Carlos Raimundo, VP Product at Paz.ai ~10 min read A few weeks ago, I was running competitive benchmarks across AI shopping engines for the footwear category. We track how brands appear in ChatGPT, Google AI, and Perplexity, the platforms where a growing number of consumers now ask for product recommendations instead of typing keywords into a search bar. I was looking at the usual suspects: Nike, Adidas, New Balance, Reebok. One brand's numbers stopped me mid-scroll. Nike was appearing in
ChatGPT Shopping in August 2026: What Influences Product and Merchant Ranking
ChatGPT separates product selection from merchant ranking. Retailers need accurate product data, current offers, and separate measurement for each.
Shopify Says It's Never Been More Excited. Forrester Says Slow Down. They're Both Right.
Shopify's president told an audience in Los Angeles this week that his company has never been more excited about anything in its history. Five days earlier, Forrester published adoption data suggesting most consumers haven't even started shopping with AI. The interesting part isn't that they disagree. It's that they're both looking at accurate data and drawing different conclusions. What Did Shopify Say About Agentic Commerce? Harley Finkelstein, Shopify's president, spoke at the Upfr
Visa Just Made Agentic Commerce a Payments Standard. Here's What That Means for Retailers.
In the span of 48 hours this week, Visa made two moves that quietly shifted agentic commerce from conference-talk territory into real payments infrastructure. On Monday, March 17, Visa launched Visa Agentic Ready in Europe - a program that puts issuers into controlled production environments to test AI agent-initiated transactions. On Tuesday, Visa announced support for Stripe and Tempo's Machine Payments Protocol (MPP), releasing a card-based specification, a developer SDK, and integrati
Shopify Just Told Merchants to Activate Their "Agentic Storefront." Most Aren't Ready.
Shopify quietly rolled out what might be the most consequential feature in its history: the Agentic Storefront. It connects your product catalog directly to ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot, letting AI agents browse your products, check inventory, and surface recommendations to consumers in real time. The toggle is sitting in every merchant's Shopify Admin right now. Almost nobody has turned it on. Shopify president Harley Finkelstein said at a recent investor conference
Meta Joins the AI Shopping Race. That Makes Five Platforms Retailers Need to Feed.
Bloomberg reported on March 3 that Meta is testing an AI-powered shopping research tool inside Meta AI. The feature shows product carousels with pricing, brand information, and links to merchant websites. No native checkout - just referral links, similar to how Google Shopping has worked for years. Forrester analyst Sucharita Kodali called it "a copycat move," and she's right. But that doesn't make it irrelevant. Count the major AI shopping surfaces retailers now need to think about: ChatGPT,
OpenAI Just Killed Native Checkout in ChatGPT. The Retailers Who Saw This Coming Are Already Ahead.
OpenAI killed Instant Checkout in ChatGPT this week. The Information broke the story on March 6: purchases are moving out of the chat interface and into merchant apps and websites. An OpenAI spokesperson confirmed it, saying they're "evolving our commerce strategy within ChatGPT to better meet merchants and users where they are." Translation: building a checkout inside a chatbot turned out to be way harder than demoing it on stage. If you've been in ecommerce long enough, this feels famili
What Is Agentic Commerce Optimization (ACO)? The Complete Guide for Retailers
Agentic Commerce Optimization (ACO) ensures your products are discoverable, selectable, and purchasable through AI interfaces like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Mode. The complete guide for retailers.
93% of AI Shopping Searches End Without a Click. Here's Where the Money Goes Instead.
92 to 94% of Google AI Mode searches produce zero clicks. But Walmart's AI assistant drives 35% higher order values. The money didn't disappear — it moved.
Your Brand Owns Its Name in AI Search. It's Invisible for Everything Else.
Branded queries find your products in AI search. Non-branded queries are where purchase intent lives, and where most catalogs go silent.
Agentic Commerce Just Left the Building. Most Brands Aren't Ready.
Google, OpenAI, and Amazon all launched agentic shopping in a single week. Most brands still have no AI commerce strategy.
Google's UCP Is Live With Wayfair and Etsy. Here's a Technical Breakdown of What Retailers Need to Implement.
Google UCP is live with Wayfair and Etsy. A technical breakdown of endpoints, authentication, and integration steps for retailers.
The Week AI Shopping Went Mainstream
Related: evolution from catalog to conversation Key finding: The week of February 17, 2026 marked agentic commerce going mainstream: Bloomberg declared the "age of agentic commerce," Harvard Business Review published an AI shopping strategy guide, Reddit launched AI product carousels, and Loblaw deployed AI checkout across 600+ Canadian stores. Last updated: February 26, 2026 The Week AI Shopping Went Mainstream There are weeks where nothing happens in retail, and then there are weeks wher
41% of Consumers Now Use AI for Product Discovery. A Third Have Ditched Search Entirely.
41% of consumers now use AI for product discovery. A third have ditched search entirely. What the PYMNTS data means for retail.
Adobe Just Committed to Every Agentic Commerce Protocol. Here's What That Means for Your Stack.
Adobe Commerce now supports UCP, ACP, and AP2, becoming the first major platform to commit to all three agentic commerce protocols.
90% of Retailers Are Increasing AI Budgets in 2026: Where the Smart Money Is Going
NVIDIA survey: 91% of retailers actively using or assessing AI. Where the investment is going and what it means for commerce.
74% of Consumers Now Use AI for Shopping: What the Latest Data Means for Your Catalog
74% of consumers use AI in their shopping journey. The 805% surge in AI traffic on Black Friday signals an urgent window for retailers.
Amazon's Buy for Me Controversy: Why Retailers Are Losing Control of Their Catalogs
Amazon Buy for Me lists products from third-party sites without permission. What the controversy reveals about walled-garden vs. open-protocol commerce.
UCP vs ACP: Which Agentic Commerce Protocol Should Retailers Choose?
UCP runs the full commerce journey (Google AI Mode). ACP powers ChatGPT discovery. Most retailers need both. See which to ship first based on your stack.
The Retailer's Guide to Agentic Commerce
AI shopping agents process 50 million queries daily on ChatGPT. A practical framework for retailers to capture this emerging channel.
AI Visibility: The New SEO
AI agents do not crawl websites or follow PageRank. They recommend products based on entirely different criteria most retailers do not understand.
From Groceries to Everything: What DoorDash's AI Expansion Plans Mean for Local Commerce
DoorDash's commerce platform expansion goes beyond groceries to alcohol, restaurants, and every local category. What mid-market retailers should do.
From Catalog to Conversation: A Tale of Three Christmas Shopping Eras
Christmas shopping evolved from catalogs (2005) to AI assistants (2025) to autonomous agents (2030). How the shift from browsing to delegating transforms retail.