Think about the last time you shopped online. Now imagine that entire process — searching, comparing, buying — handled not by you, but by your AI assistant. Welcome to 2026, where agentic artificial intelligence isn’t just a tool. It’s your customer.
These AI agents work on behalf of people. They scan catalogs, compare options, initiate payments, and handle communications — all in real time. For marketers, this isn’t a future to anticipate. It’s a system they must adapt to now.
From omnichannel to agentic commerce
Marketers have spent years developing omnichannel strategies, only for AI to come along and change everything. Autonomous agents don’t browse sites or navigate apps as people do. They act — and fast.
“Retail evolves from omnichannel to agentic commerce,” said Mark Menell, managing director at Silicon Foundry. “AI agents surface, compare, and purchase for consumers. Retailers who expose catalog and loyalty data via APIs become agent-friendly storefronts and win share.”
In other words, if your product data isn’t structured and accessible, it doesn’t exist to the agents doing the buying.
Dig deeper: Agentic AI, Decoded: A Practical Guide for Marketers
Agents don’t shop — they decide
Eii Promisel, also with Silicon Foundry, puts it bluntly: “Shopping, payments and financing increasingly move to autonomous agents, reshaping the end-to-end consumer journey. Banks compete not on app UX, but API access and trust.”
So while people still drive demand, it’s AI that executes the transaction. Your job as a marketer? Ensure your brand is visible, trusted and interpretable — not just to humans, but also to the systems acting on their behalf.
Agent-to-agent commerce speeds everything up
“In 2026, a meaningful share of customer interactions will happen agent-to-agent,” said Gareth Cummings, CEO of eDesk. “Shoppers will use AI assistants to check stock, confirm delivery times or verify returns, and brands will respond with their own AI agents that can read order data and act instantly.”
Speed is the new differentiator. “Conversations that used to take minutes will collapse into a single automated exchange.” Retailers with unified systems will thrive. Those with legacy tech and data silos? They’ll be invisible.
Consumers are ready for agents, but they still want choice
According to research by Incubeta, 70% of consumers say they’d welcome AI agents helping them shop. But don’t mistake convenience for passivity.
“Consumers will always want the freedom to explore, compare, and take pleasure in discovery,” said Shannon Millard, VP at Epsilon. “The challenge now is to design AI ecosystems that protect that agency, ensuring automation enhances, rather than erases, the experience of choice.”
Put simply: if your AI experience feels like a trap, consumers will find the exit.
Dig deeper: 6 common agentic AI pitfalls and how to avoid them
AgentOps is marketing’s new must-have
Deploying agents is one thing. Managing them at scale is another. That’s where AgentOps comes in — a new operational layer for enterprises running fleets of AI agents.
“Just as DevOps reshaped software deployment in the 2010s, AgentOps will reshape AI operations in 2026,” said Joao Moura, CEO of CrewAI, which provides cloud platforms for agents. “It’ll sit between engineering and operations and will be responsible for managing fleets of AI agents, monitoring cost, reliability, and compliance.”
Moura adds that large enterprises will start building internal “Agent Factories” — dedicated environments where teams can design, test, and launch multi-agent workflows that drive ROI while keeping oversight and governance in place.
How to make your marketing stack agent-ready
Let’s break it down. To thrive in agentic ecosystems, marketers need:
- Real-time responsiveness. Agents don’t wait.
- Structured data and content. It needs to be easy for LLMs to parse and rank.
- Integration with protocols like OpenAI’s ACP and Google’s AP2.
- Interoperability across your commerce stack.
- New KPIs, like “Share of Model” — a metric for how often an AI recommends your brand.
In short: if your system can’t talk to agents, your brand won’t be in the conversation.
Dig deeper: How to speed up AI adoption and turn hype into results
Don’t let hype build a frankenstack
Kate Frost, head of optimization at IMG, offers a sharp warning: “My one wish for 2026 is that marketers will stop assuming that any AI anywhere in their business will add value and make things easier. I really hope people will become savvy to the view that AI is only useful when used in the optimal way and at the right point in their process.”
She’s right. AI isn’t a magic fix. “CMOs will need to invest in taking the time and upfront investment to identify the optimal approach, define a rollout plan, and develop an appropriate change plan to ensure they don’t scare off all their talent. That way, the introduction of AI into their processes will provide massive ROI. Otherwise, things will get worse before they get better.”
SaaS still matters — when paired with AI
It turns out that AI isn’t replacing SaaS. It’s extending it. A development counter to what many had predicted.
“In 2026, the winners will be those who combine the agility of AI agents with the reliability of SaaS to deliver measurable business value,” said Ross Meyercord, CEO of Propel Software. “SaaS brings the workflows, governance, and guardrails that enterprises demand, while AI agents extend productivity and speed.”
The next wave of AI agents won’t be confined to single applications. Meyercord said that instead, they will operate across entire tech ecosystems — communicating, coordinating, and executing tasks in ways that transform disconnected workflows into unified, intelligent systems.
You’re not late — yet
According to McKinsey, 62% of organizations are still in the experimental phase with agentic AI, and only 23% are scaling up. In retail, three-quarters are still in the pilot phase.
And yet, a report from Axciom found 97% of surveyed companies expect conversational agents to be mainstream within two to three years.
So no, you’re not behind. But if you’re not building agentic systems now, you might be gone from the grid before you realize the agents stopped looking.
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