AI agents drive shift toward autonomous agentic commerce

The rise of agentic commerce is transforming online shopping as AI agents move from simple chatbots to autonomous systems capable of executing purchases. AEON has launched an Agentic Checkout feature integrated with Shopify, allowing users to use conversational interfaces to find products and complete transactions via an AI Card powered by Visa or Mastercard. This infrastructure provides agents with controlled spending power through single-use cards and predefined budget limits.

Anthropic has also contributed to this ecosystem with Claude Commerce Agents, a toolkit for merchants to build shopping and merchant agents. While these tools can manage carts and inventory, they currently lack direct payment functions, requiring human approval for final checkouts.

The economic implications are significant. Morgan Stanley estimates that AI shopping assistants could account for $190 billion to $385 billion of U.S. e-commerce spending by 2030. Industry data shows a massive surge in AI-driven traffic, with Shopware reporting 15 times more traffic from AI tools in early 2026 compared to the previous year. Experts note that for this technology to succeed, brands must shift from traditional SEO to optimizing product intelligence and commerce infrastructure to ensure agents can accurately interpret and interact with digital catalogs.