Why brand visibility is now machine-dependent.
The battle for consumer attention is over. Now, it’s a fight to be seen by the algorithm.
After years of accelerated innovation and a global race to embed AI into every facet of our digital lives, retail is approaching its tipping point. No longer just a general assistant or customer service chatbot, AI is fast becoming the lead decision-maker in what, and how, consumers buy.
By 2030, Cognizant predicts AI will be fully embedded into the consumer purchase journey, influencing more than half of all buying decisions. In the UK alone, AI-first shoppers – those using personal AI agents to automate purchases – are expected to drive £690 billion in spending.
For retailers, this marks a fundamental shift: from marketing to people, to staying visible to the machines buying on their behalf.
The rise of agentic commerce
Agentic commerce describes the evolution of AI from passive assistants to active commercial agents, learning to browse websites and complete transactions with
minimal human oversight. The end goal is an AI-powered ecosystem where machines move beyond assistance to own the entire shopping journey.
Big Tech is moving fast to dominate this emerging ecosystem. OpenAI is integrating shopping capabilities directly into ChatGPT, blurring the lines between conversation and conversion. Amazon’s Buy for Me feature enables users to complete purchases from third-party sites without ever leaving the Amazon app, asserting control over a broader slice of the buying journey. Meanwhile, Perplexity launched Shop Like a Pro late last year, and Microsoft rolled out its own merchant program. The race is on.
Behind the scenes, payments infrastructure is also adapting. Mastercard, VISA and Paypal are exploring ways to support AI-mediated transactions – a sign this shift isn’t speculative, but systematic.
These bold moves by the world’s biggest tech players point to a near-future e-commerce system where AI dominates. In this machine-driven marketplace, the customer journey begins without the customer, and brands that aren’t visible to AI risk disappearing from the buying process entirely.
When the algorithm starts shopping
Agentic commerce isn’t just another tech upgrade to integrate, and it will have a profound impact on how retail works, from pricing and positioning to discovery and CX.
The transition to agentic commerce will accelerate existing trends like commoditization and the squeeze on mid-tier brands. When AI agents shop on our behalf, they zero in on cold criteria: price, reviews, specifications, and fulfilment speed. In an era optimized for algorithms, marketing fluff will be filtered out, and the digital advertising model will need to adapt, fast.
In this model, shopping is no longer a leisurely or exploratory activity but becomes zero-click: prompted and purchased without friction. While this is a win for low-stakes, repeatable purchases – think batteries, toiletries or dog food – it introduces new challenges for products that rely on emotional resonance or discovery.
The ‘surprise and delight’ moments of stumbling across an unexpected product online, or the serendipity of in-store browsing are at risk of being flattened by automation. The question for retailers, then, isn’t just how to optimize for AI, but how to maintain excitement in a system optimized for efficiency.
Staying seen when the bots take over
To stay visible, businesses need to align with how AI systems evaluate and select products, retooling the mechanics behind marketing. Agentic platforms don’t browse or scroll like humans do, but filter, rank and transact based on structured inputs. It will become less about driving awareness, and more about producing clean, context-rich product data, dynamic pricing and technical compatibility with the platforms doing the buying.
This shift also demands a new marketing skillset. As search evolves into conversation and generative engines replace traditional ones, businesses must master Generative Search Optimization (GEO). This means designing content and product data not for human discovery, but for LLM-driven platforms. Broad awareness campaigns, then, must give way to machine-contextual clues that make a product stand out in an AI-curated shortlist.
At the same time, experience still matters. Organizations should automate where it solves decision fatigue but protect the emotional high points of shopping where discovery and delight still drive value. Not everything has to be a ‘zero-click’ transaction.
This shift also brings a new ethics and consumer trust equation. As AI continues to take the load off humans in every aspect of digital life, consumers still need visibility into how and why products are recommended. Investing in transparency, ethical data use and explainability are crucial not just as risk mitigation, but as commercial differentiators.
Ultimately, this is a strategic inflection point. Agentic commerce will shift power and rewire customer influence. Brands must re-examine their positioning and engagement models through a new lens – one where the gatekeeper is no longer the consumer, but the AI deciding for them. The real question is whether your business is surfacing or disappearing.
The time to adapt is now
Agentic commerce isn’t a passing trend or far-off future; it’s already embedded into the infrastructure of tomorrow’s retail. The algorithms making buying decisions won’t care about brand legacy or clever creative, but will reward the brands that are fast, structured and machine optimized.
For businesses, the opportunity is real – but so is the risk. Those that adapt early will shape the rules of engagement and stay visible in an increasingly machine-mediated world. Those that delay may find themselves optimized out of the consumer journey altogether.
This is not the moment to wait and see. It’s the moment to re-engineer, re-strategize and prepare for what comes next, because the bots are already buying.
Ben Wiener
Ben Wiener is Global Head of Cognizant Moment. Cognizant helps companies modernize technology, reimagine processes and transform experiences so they stay ahead in a fast-changing world.