The tech industry is hot for shopping bots, but they're years away
What's good for human shoppers does not work with probabilistic AI agents
The tech and financial industries are buzzing about the prospect of automated software making purchases on behalf of consumers from online merchants, a concept dubbed "agentic commerce." However, several challenges stand in the way of realizing this vision. Amazon has blocked Meta's Muse bot for violating terms of use, and Perplexity's AI bot was similarly blocked, raising questions about e-commerce platforms accepting automated shopping.
Payment companies, on the other hand, are more open to the idea, with Mastercard publishing a report on making agentic commerce workable.
AI agents are already capable of shopping, paying, and acting on behalf of consumers, businesses, and machines, with analysts predicting that agentic commerce in US consumer retail could reach $1 trillion in revenue by 2030. However, experts like Lindsay Walker, a product manager at Hedera AI Studio, caution that agentic commerce is not yet a reality.
She notes that while AI agents can assist with product selection, the purchasing process still requires human intervention due to factors like trust, personalization, and the importance of deterministic gates in financial transactions. Walker suggests that the industry needs a mechanism to tether a person's identity to an AI agent, as the current setup does not allow for true agentic autonomy.
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