{"id":83430,"date":"2026-11-01T10:20:41","date_gmt":"2026-11-01T08:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/?p=83430"},"modified":"2026-11-01T10:20:41","modified_gmt":"2026-11-01T08:20:41","slug":"retail-after-search-what-happens-when-ai-agents-do-the-shopping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/retail-after-search-what-happens-when-ai-agents-do-the-shopping\/","title":{"rendered":"Retail after search: what happens when AI agents do the shopping"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-cover is-light has-black-color has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-1\" style=\"margin-bottom:30px\"><span aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-cover__background has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-background-dim-20 has-background-dim\"><\/span><div class=\"wp-block-cover__inner-container is-layout-flow wp-block-cover-is-layout-flow\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-group is-vertical is-layout-flex wp-container-core-group-is-layout-2c90304e wp-block-group-is-layout-flex\">\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">In short<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When AI agents do the shopping, an agent reads your product data, compares you with competitors and pays for the customer. It is growing fast: according to Adobe, traffic from generative AI tools to US retail sites rose 693.4% in the 2025 holiday season. Retailers win when an agent can find, understand and trust their prices, stock&nbsp;and&nbsp;policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For twenty years, online retail revolved around search: be found in Google, win the click, convert the visit. That model is starting to shift. For you as a retailer or brand, the question becomes whether your customer&#8217;s agent can find and choose your offer. Below you will read what has changed, how big it is today and what you can do before the next&nbsp;holiday&nbsp;season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\" style=\"margin-top:0!important;margin-bottom:0!important\">\n<li>In the US, commerce media revenue reached $63.4 billion in 2025, up 18% on the year before, according to IAB&nbsp;and&nbsp;PwC.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Target says AI-driven traffic to Target rose 2,000% in the first quarter, against nearly 400% for retail sites&nbsp;in&nbsp;general.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>In September 2026, Google reported that UCP enables direct checkout for hundreds of thousands of brands&nbsp;and&nbsp;retailers.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>Google says merchants following its core Merchant Center feed best practices see on average 5% more conversions the&nbsp;following&nbsp;month.<\/li>\n\n\n<li>In Great Britain, 28.8% of retail sales were made online in September 2026, according to the Office for&nbsp;National&nbsp;Statistics.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"rvh-lezing rvh-lezing-boven\" style=\"margin:0 0 30px;padding:18px 20px 8px;border-left:4px solid #00b4ee;background:#f4f8fb\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 4px;font-size:12px;font-weight:700;letter-spacing:.06em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#7a8799\">Keynote by Richard<\/p><p style=\"margin:0 0 14px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.55;color:#2b3445\"><strong>AI &amp; the future of retail.<\/strong> Stock and price forecasts, the AI shopper that buys for your customer, the shop that runs itself.<\/p><p style=\"margin:0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/ai-and-the-future-of-retail?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=artikel&amp;utm_campaign=retail-after-search-what-happens-when-ai-agents-do-the-shopping&amp;utm_content=boven-lezing\" style=\"display:inline-block;font-family:Poppins,sans-serif;font-weight:600;font-size:14px;line-height:1.3;padding:12px 18px;border-radius:6px;text-decoration:none;margin:0 10px 10px 0;background:#00b4ee;color:#fff\">View the keynote&nbsp;\u2192<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=artikel&amp;utm_campaign=retail-after-search-what-happens-when-ai-agents-do-the-shopping&amp;utm_content=boven-alle#lezingen\" style=\"font-size:14px;color:#2566C4;font-weight:600;text-decoration:none;white-space:nowrap;display:inline-block;margin:0 0 10px\">All keynotes<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is agentic commerce?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-style:italic;font-weight:700\">In agentic commerce, the customer sets a goal and the agent searches, compares and&nbsp;checks&nbsp;out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"margin-bottom:6px\">Agentic commerce means that an AI agent does more than give advice. It takes a goal (&#8220;a waterproof running jacket under 150 pounds, delivered by Friday&#8221;), searches, compares and checks out. If you want a primer on how these agents work in general, see our article on <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/beyond-chatbots-the-exciting-future-of-generative-ai-agents\/\">the future of generative AI agents<\/a>. Four open standards now make this possible at scale. The fact that competitors are agreeing on them is a strong sign that this is probably not a passing experiment.&nbsp;In&nbsp;short:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\" style=\"margin-top:0!important;margin-bottom:30px!important\">\n<li style=\"font-weight:400\"><strong>ACP (Agentic Commerce Protocol).<\/strong><br>Stripe and OpenAI, September 2025, together with Instant Checkout in ChatGPT, which let US users buy from Etsy sellers without leaving the chat. Stripe said over a million Shopify merchants would&nbsp;follow&nbsp;(<a href=\"https:\/\/stripe.com\/newsroom\/news\/stripe-openai-instant-checkout\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Stripe<\/a>).<\/li>\n\n\n<li style=\"font-weight:400\"><strong>AP2 (Agent Payments Protocol).<\/strong><br>Google, announced in September 2025 with more than 60 organisations, including Mastercard, PayPal, American Express and Adyen&nbsp;(<a href=\"https:\/\/cloud.google.com\/blog\/products\/ai-machine-learning\/announcing-agents-to-payments-ap2-protocol\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Google&nbsp;Cloud<\/a>).<\/li>\n\n\n<li style=\"font-weight:400\"><strong>UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol).<\/strong><br>Google, January 2026, co-developed with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart. Covers the whole journey from discovery and buying to post-purchase&nbsp;support&nbsp;(<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/products\/ads-commerce\/agentic-commerce-ai-tools-protocol-retailers-platforms\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Google<\/a>).<\/li>\n\n\n<li style=\"font-weight:400\"><strong>Personal Agent Protocol.<\/strong><br>Meta and Sierra, announced in October 2026 with partners including Shopify, Stripe and Walmart: an open standard for how personal agents deal with businesses (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/business\/news\/a-new-way-for-businesses-and-personal-agents-to-work-together\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Meta<\/a>). In Meta&#8217;s words: &#8220;Turning away a personal agent means turning away the customer&nbsp;behind&nbsp;it.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Retailers and tech companies worldwide are preparing for agents that find, compare and pay for the best offer on your behalf, within the limits you set. Soon that will apply to procurement in every sector and to many consumer markets: you get a sketch of your new living room, and agents find the best products and prices,&nbsp;second-hand&nbsp;included.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How big is it already?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-style:italic;font-weight:700\">Still small, but growing fast, and checkout options are&nbsp;spreading&nbsp;quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to <a href=\"https:\/\/news.adobe.com\/news\/2026\/01\/adobe-holiday-shopping-season\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Adobe<\/a>, traffic from generative AI tools to US retail sites rose by 693.4% during the 2025 holiday season compared with a year earlier, based on more than a trillion visits to US retail sites. Adobe adds a caveat: &#8220;the base of users remains modest&#8221;. At one large retailer the jump is far bigger: according to <a href=\"https:\/\/corporate.target.com\/press\/fact-sheet\/2026\/06\/conversational-ai\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Target<\/a>, &#8220;AI-driven traffic to Target leapt 2,000% in the first quarter compared to last year&#8221;, against nearly 400% for retail sites&nbsp;in&nbsp;general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The supply side is moving faster. In September 2026, Google reported that UCP &#8220;already enables direct checkout for hundreds of thousands of brands and retailers across Google&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/products-and-platforms\/products\/shopping\/google-shopping-updates-holiday-shopping\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Google<\/a>). In other words, the checkout is ready before most shoppers are. That means hundreds of thousands of brands go into the 2026 holiday season with direct checkout&nbsp;across&nbsp;Google.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What changes for retailers?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-style:italic;font-weight:700\">Product data, brand and the customer relationship all change when an agent chooses for&nbsp;the&nbsp;customer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Product data becomes your shop window<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A human can live with a vague product page; an agent has a harder time with it. It compares structured facts: price, size, material, delivery time, return policy, stock. If those are missing or inconsistent, you run the risk that the agent picks a competitor whose data is complete. Google says that merchants adopting its core Merchant Center feed best practices see on average a 5% increase in conversions the following&nbsp;month&nbsp;(<a href=\"https:\/\/blog.google\/products-and-platforms\/products\/shopping\/google-shopping-updates-holiday-shopping\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Google<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The brand must persuade person and agent<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Loyalty and brand preference do not disappear, but they need to be explicit. If a customer tells an assistant &#8220;I always buy from this brand&#8221;, the agent can take that into account. If not, the agent optimises for whatever the customer asked. We explored the consumer side of this question in <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/are-you-buying-what-you-want-or-is-ai-in-control\/\">are you buying what you want, or is AI&nbsp;in&nbsp;control?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The retailer stays the seller<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The new protocols are designed so that retailers keep the customer relationship. The ACP specification states that &#8220;businesses maintain their customer relationships as the merchant of record, retaining control over which products can be sold, how they&#8217;re presented, and how orders are fulfilled&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.agenticcommerce.dev\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Agentic Commerce Protocol<\/a>). Whether that holds in practice, when the conversation itself happens on someone else&#8217;s platform, is one of the big&nbsp;open&nbsp;questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"rvh-zie wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-size:14px !important;line-height:1.5 !important;color:#7a8799 !important;margin-top:-8px !important\">\u2192 <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/ai-agents-in-customer-service\/\" style=\"color:#7a8799 !important;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:3px\">Read more: From chatbot to AI agent: the future of customer service<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\" style=\"margin-bottom:30px!important\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/richardvanhooijdonk.com\/assets\/fotos\/richard-027.69f6274084.webp\" alt=\"Richard van Hooijdonk on stage in front of a screen with his name, trend watcher and futurist\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Payments: who is accountable?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-style:italic;font-weight:700\">Payments are where trust is won or lost, and orders placed by agents need a&nbsp;new&nbsp;path.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Stripe&#8217;s Shared Payment Token &#8220;lets applications like ChatGPT initiate a payment without exposing the buyer&#8217;s payment credentials&#8221; (<a href=\"https:\/\/stripe.com\/newsroom\/news\/stripe-openai-instant-checkout\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Stripe<\/a>). Google&#8217;s AP2 adds signed &#8220;mandates&#8221;: an Intent Mandate records what the user asked for, and a Cart Mandate records the exact items and price the user approved. Google frames the problem as three questions: authorisation (did the user give the agent this authority?), authenticity (does the request reflect the user&#8217;s real intent?) and accountability (who is responsible if a transaction is fraudulent or wrong?) (<a href=\"https:\/\/cloud.google.com\/blog\/products\/ai-machine-learning\/announcing-agents-to-payments-ap2-protocol\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Google Cloud<\/a>). For retailers, this means returns, disputes and fraud checks need a new path for orders placed by agents. For more on where payments are heading, see <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/the-future-of-finance-will-see-payments-with-a-wave-of-the-hand-and-ai-managing-our-money\/\">the future of finance and AI managing&nbsp;our&nbsp;money<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What happens to the store?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-style:italic;font-weight:700\">The store stays, but its job shifts to what an agent cannot&nbsp;do&nbsp;well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Great Britain, 28.8% of retail sales were made online in September 2026, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ons.gov.uk\/businessindustryandtrade\/retailindustry\/bulletins\/retailsales\/september2026\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Office for National Statistics<\/a>. More than seven in ten pounds are still spent elsewhere. We expect agents to take over the routine, repeat purchases first: groceries, household goods, replacements. That leaves the store with what an agent cannot do well: let people touch, try, ask and&nbsp;be&nbsp;inspired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the same time, retailers are becoming media companies. In the US, commerce media revenue reached $63.4 billion in 2025, up 18% on the year before (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.iab.com\/research\/iab-pwc-internet-advertising-revenue-report-full-year-2025\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">IAB and PwC<\/a>). If agents skip the ads on a product page, that model will have to change too. We looked at the longer arc of these shifts in <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/the-future-of-retail-10-examples\/\">the future of retail: 10 examples<\/a>. For organisations that want to explore what this means for their own strategy, see Richard&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/ai-and-the-future-of-retail?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=artikel&amp;utm_campaign=retail-after-search-what-happens-when-ai-agents-do-the-shopping\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">keynotes for the&nbsp;retail&nbsp;sector<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What can retailers do now?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"font-style:italic;font-weight:700\">Five steps help you become readable for agents, from product data to the&nbsp;store&nbsp;itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\" style=\"margin-top:0!important;margin-bottom:30px!important\">\n<li style=\"font-weight:400\"><strong>Audit your product data.<\/strong><br>Check that price, stock, size, material, delivery time and return policy are complete and consistent in&nbsp;every&nbsp;feed.<\/li>\n\n\n<li style=\"font-weight:400\"><strong>Decide where you want to be bought.<\/strong><br>Find out which AI assistants and protocols your platform and payment provider already support. Also check that your bot protection is not quietly turning customers&#8217; agents away: since September 2026, <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.cloudflare.com\/accountable-mixed-use-ai-crawlers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Cloudflare<\/a> gives sites that used the old &#8216;Block AI&#8217; setting the new &#8216;Block on pages with ads&#8217; setting&nbsp;for&nbsp;agents.<\/li>\n\n\n<li style=\"font-weight:400\"><strong>Prepare for agent orders.<\/strong><br>Agree how you handle returns, disputes and fraud checks when an agent placed&nbsp;the&nbsp;order.<\/li>\n\n\n<li style=\"font-weight:400\"><strong>Measure AI traffic separately.<\/strong><br>Visits and sales from AI assistants behave differently from search traffic; track them as their&nbsp;own&nbsp;channel.<\/li>\n\n\n<li style=\"font-weight:400\"><strong>Give the store a reason to exist.<\/strong><br>Invest in advice, experience and service that an agent&nbsp;cannot&nbsp;replace.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The shift from search to agents will not happen overnight. But the standards, the payment rails and the first checkouts are already live. Retailers that make themselves readable for agents this year improve their chances of being recommended by&nbsp;those&nbsp;agents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These steps only work if the people in your shops and offices take part. So start with your own work: go through tasks such as keeping product information up to date, answering customer questions and handling returns, and decide for each one what an agent can do and where your people make the difference. I recommend giving them room to experiment, for example by asking an AI assistant yourself to find a product from your own range and seeing what happens. I see agents as a new technology that deserves enthusiasm, but also a critical eye on what the customer really gains from it. How you get the people in your organisation moving for a change like this is also the subject of the <a href=\"https:\/\/richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/keynote-the-organisation-of-the-future?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=artikel&amp;utm_campaign=retail-after-search-what-happens-when-ai-agents-do-the-shopping\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">keynote on the organisation of&nbsp;the&nbsp;future<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"rvh-lezing rvh-lezing-onder\" style=\"margin:0 0 30px;padding:22px 20px 12px;background:#f4f8fb;border-radius:8px\"><p style=\"margin:0 0 6px;font-size:20px;font-weight:700;line-height:1.3;color:#2b3445\">Richard speaks on this topic<\/p><p style=\"margin:0 0 16px;font-size:16px;line-height:1.55;color:#2b3445\"><strong>AI &amp; the future of retail.<\/strong> Stock and price forecasts, the AI shopper that buys for your customer, the shop that runs itself.<\/p><p style=\"margin:0\"><a href=\"https:\/\/richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/ai-and-the-future-of-retail?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=artikel&amp;utm_campaign=retail-after-search-what-happens-when-ai-agents-do-the-shopping&amp;utm_content=onder-lezing\" style=\"display:inline-block;font-family:Poppins,sans-serif;font-weight:600;font-size:14px;line-height:1.3;padding:12px 18px;border-radius:6px;text-decoration:none;margin:0 10px 10px 0;background:#00b4ee;color:#fff;border:2px solid #00b4ee\">View the keynote&nbsp;\u2192<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=artikel&amp;utm_campaign=retail-after-search-what-happens-when-ai-agents-do-the-shopping&amp;utm_content=onder-home\" style=\"display:inline-block;font-family:Poppins,sans-serif;font-weight:600;font-size:14px;line-height:1.3;padding:12px 18px;border-radius:6px;text-decoration:none;margin:0 10px 10px 0;background:#fff;color:#0089b8;border:2px solid #00b4ee\">Meet Richard<\/a><\/p><p style=\"margin:2px 0 8px\"><a href=\"https:\/\/richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=artikel&amp;utm_campaign=retail-after-search-what-happens-when-ai-agents-do-the-shopping&amp;utm_content=onder-alle#lezingen\" style=\"font-size:14px;color:#2566C4;font-weight:600;text-decoration:none;white-space:nowrap;margin-right:18px\">All keynotes<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/ai-and-the-future-of-retail?utm_source=blog&amp;utm_medium=artikel&amp;utm_campaign=retail-after-search-what-happens-when-ai-agents-do-the-shopping&amp;utm_content=onder-aanvraag#aanvragen\" style=\"font-size:14px;color:#2566C4;font-weight:600;text-decoration:none;white-space:nowrap\">Check availability<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:15px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Frequently asked questions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<details class=\"wp-block-details rvh-faq is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow\" style=\"border-bottom:1px solid #d9dee5;padding:12px 0;margin:0\"><summary style=\"cursor:pointer;font-weight:700\">What is agentic commerce?<\/summary>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"margin:8px 0 4px\">Shopping in which an AI agent searches, compares and checks out on the customer&#8217;s behalf. The customer sets a goal and limits, such as a price or a delivery date, and the agent does the rest. Open standards such as ACP, AP2 and UCP define how the agent talks to the shop and the&nbsp;payment&nbsp;provider.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n<details class=\"wp-block-details rvh-faq is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow\" style=\"border-bottom:1px solid #d9dee5;padding:12px 0;margin:0\"><summary style=\"cursor:pointer;font-weight:700\">Can customers already pay through AI?<\/summary>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"margin:8px 0 4px\">In some places, yes. Instant Checkout in ChatGPT launched for US users in September 2025, and in September 2026 Google reported that UCP already enables direct checkout for hundreds of thousands of brands and retailers. Check what your own platform and payment&nbsp;provider&nbsp;support.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n<details class=\"wp-block-details rvh-faq is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow\" style=\"border-bottom:1px solid #d9dee5;padding:12px 0;margin:0\"><summary style=\"cursor:pointer;font-weight:700\">Who is accountable if a payment goes wrong?<\/summary>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"margin:8px 0 4px\">It is one of the open questions. Google&#8217;s AP2 adds signed mandates that record what the user asked for and which items and price they approved. Google names accountability, who is responsible if a transaction goes wrong, as one of three core questions for payments made&nbsp;by&nbsp;agents.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n<details class=\"wp-block-details rvh-faq is-layout-flow wp-block-details-is-layout-flow\" style=\"border-bottom:1px solid #d9dee5;padding:12px 0;margin:0\"><summary style=\"cursor:pointer;font-weight:700\">How much of retail is already online?<\/summary>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\" style=\"margin:8px 0 4px\">In Great Britain, 28.8% of retail sales were made online in September 2026, according to the Office for National Statistics. More than seven in ten pounds are still spent elsewhere, so the store keeps a&nbsp;clear&nbsp;role.<\/p>\n<\/details>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"rvh-bio\" style=\"display:flex;gap:14px;align-items:center;margin:28px 0 8px;padding-top:16px;border-top:1px solid #e3e6ea\"><picture><source srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/RichardVanHooijdonk_3787-1-300x197.webp \"  type=\"image\/webp\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/RichardVanHooijdonk_3787-1-300x197.jpg\" alt=\"Richard van Hooijdonk\" width=\"76\" height=\"76\" class=\"skip-lazy sp-no-webp\" data-no-lazy=\"1\" style=\"width:76px!important;min-width:76px!important;max-width:76px!important;height:76px!important;border-radius:50%;object-fit:cover;flex:none\"><\/picture><p style=\"margin:0;font-size:14px;line-height:1.6;color:#6b7686\"><a href=\"https:\/\/richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/about-richard?utm_source=blog&#038;utm_medium=bio&#038;utm_campaign=retail-after-search-what-happens-when-ai-agents-do-the-shopping\" style=\"color:#2b3445;font-weight:600;text-decoration:none\">Richard van Hooijdonk<\/a> is a trend watcher, futurist and international keynote speaker. Many trend watchers and futurists look at the future from a distance. Richard van Hooijdonk lives in it. His team consists of people and AI agents, and he has several chips implanted in his body. He has given more than 3,000 keynotes in more than 30 countries. <a href=\"https:\/\/richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/?utm_source=blog&#038;utm_medium=bio-keynotes&#038;utm_campaign=retail-after-search-what-happens-when-ai-agents-do-the-shopping#lezingen\" style=\"color:#2566C4;font-weight:600;text-decoration:none;white-space:nowrap\">View his keynotes&nbsp;\u2192<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AI agents can now compare, choose and pay for us. What agentic commerce means for retailers and brands: product data, payments, trust and the store.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":83431,"parent":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2882],"tags":[],"article-type":[],"trends":[],"class_list":["post-83430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-retail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83507,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83430\/revisions\/83507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83430"},{"taxonomy":"article-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-type?post=83430"},{"taxonomy":"trends","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richardvanhooijdonk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/trends?post=83430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}