Buying and selling online with e-commerce is old news. We’re entering the age of A-commerce, where artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly able to shop for us.
At the end of September, OpenAI launched its “Buy it in ChatGPT” trial in the United States, using AI agents built to interact with us to do more of people’s browsing and shopping. The technology is known as “agentic commerce”, sometimes shortened to A-commerce.
American shoppers can now ask for shopping suggestions from US Etsy sellers within a ChatGPT chat – then buy a product immediately, without having to navigate away to look at individual shop pages.
Looking ahead, big companies are now spruiking the next phase of “autonomous A-commerce”, which experts predict could see AI checking out for some shoppers within the next few years.
But is handing over more of our shopping decisions to AI a good thing for us as shoppers, for most businesses or for the planet?
What’s possible right now?
For most people using AI to help them shop, the AI agent is still mostly just searching and recommending products. It still has to shift the customer to the retailer’s website to complete the checkout.
For instance, AI can do most steps to order a pizza – though sometimes slower than doing it yourself – apart from paying at the end.
That’s when we step in: we still need to sign in if we’re part of a loyalty program, enter our personal and delivery details, then finally pay.
With the “Buy it in ChatGPT” trial now underway in the US, the customer never leaves the chat, where the checkout is completed.
Shopify has said more than 1 million of its merchants will soon be able to check out within ChatGPT too. Major US retailer Walmart has similar plans.
What’s next?
In May 2025, Google launched “AI mode shopping”. Some features, like using a full body photo of yourself to virtually “try-on” clothes, are still only available for US shoppers, with limited brands.
At the time, Google said its next step will be a new “agentic checkout […] in coming months” for products sold in the US. It would give shoppers the option of tracking a product until its price drops to within a set budget – then automatically prompting them to buy it, using Google Pay. That checkout option is yet to launch.
Credit card giants Visa and Mastercard are also working on ways to make it easier for AI agents to shop for us.
Both the current and coming forms of A-commerce have the potential to spread fast worldwide, because they run largely on the same global digital infrastructure powering today’s e-commerce: identity, payments, data and compliance.
Consultants McKinsey forecast: “We’re entering an era where AI agents won’t just assist – they’ll decide.”
What are the risks and benefits?
Overspending is a big risk.
A-commerce removes many steps of the shopping journey found in e-commerce or physical commerce, leading to fewer abandoned carts and potentially higher spending.
People would need to trust AI systems with their private data and preferences, and ensure they’re not misused. Permitting AI to shop on your behalf means you are responsible for the purchase and can’t easily demand a refund.
Read more:
OpenAI slipped shopping into 800 million ChatGPT users’ chats − here’s why that matters
AI systems might focus on price or speed, but not always for what you value most: from how sustainable a product is, to the ethics of how it was made.
Fraud could be a real issue. Scammers could set up AI storefronts to trick the AI, collect the money and never deliver.
Banks will need to figure out how to spot fraud, process refunds, and manage consent when it’s not a person pressing “buy”, but an algorithm doing it on their behalf.
Regulators will need to consider A-commerce in their competition, privacy, data, and consumer protection rules.
A-commerce could offer some limited environmental benefits compared to today’s way of shopping, such as fewer missed deliveries – if you’re happy to share your calendar so your AI agent knows your availability.
But greater consumption would also mean greater environmental impacts: from AI’s voracious energy and water use, to the damage done by fast fashion, more deliveries and indirect pollution.
Changing how we shop and do business
If you have even a small business, the way you make your products and services discoverable online will have to change.
Instead of just having websites built for customers and search engines, all businesses will need to build AI accessible online stores. Those will not look like the websites we see today. It will be more like a data-soaked digital catalogue, filled with everything an AI agent needs to place orders: product specifications, price, stock, ratings, reviews, through to delivery options.
All those years of bigger brands buying attention and dominating search results might start to matter less, if you’re able to build a good AI accessible online store. It could be a quiet but massive shift in how trade works.
However, each business’s visibility will depend on how AI systems read and rank sellers. If a business’s data isn’t formatted for AI, it may disappear from view. That could give larger players an edge and once again make it harder for smaller businesses to compete.
How much are we happy to delegate our shopping to AI agents? Our individual and collective choices over the next few years will shape how radically shopping is about to change for years to come.
Vibhu Arya does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
