In this guest article, James Galland, Head of Commerce at creative agency VML explains how AI agents are changing how consumers think, behave and shop. Galland argues that despite assumptions consumers will become less and less apart of the online shopping journey, consumers actually crave experience, meaning agents will enhance the customer journey making it more hyper-personalised.
Agentic AI is redefining the old world commerce order and rebuilding it in a more fluid, autonomous and integrated format, one where the agents can prompt, plan, negotiate, acquire and re-order without any human interaction. Yet, while swiftly becoming a norm, that’s not to say it is automatically desired. Humans (and shoppers) crave experience, experience that is personal, empathetic and engaging – testament shown by ‘better cx’ the singular largest growth driver of digital commerce globally in 2025.
In this piece, rather than waxing lyrical about how agents can strip humanity entirely out from the path to purchase, rather I’ll cover how agents and agentic commerce will enhance the shopping experience, creating richer, immersive storytelling moments that can drive long term brand love and I’ll highlight the data revolution that is needed to win in it.
What role will the shopper play in the buying journey?
Automation. Speed. Ease. This is what agentic commerce promises us. It’s a mantra that is as much commandment as expectation at this stage, with the impending direction of travel found in thought leadership high and low across the net. There’s a great piece from McKinsey which highlights the next phase of the path to transaction, where AI agent powered integrated shopping journeys effectively own every stage of the acquisition funnel.
It’s a heady, exciting space, but creates a view where the shopper is not just relegated from being a proactive seeker of connection but removed entirely from the purchasing and experience equation, slightly reminiscent of the scene in the Disney Pixar film Wall E where the AI removes the ownership from the consumers onboard the space ship and prompts and dictates every action they take.
Yet, while integrated agentic agents will undoubtedly transform the shopping experience (up to 75 percent of all brands are expected to use agents in some format in 2026) , it is this very ‘experience’ which I argue will remain central to the buying equation. Just because we can doesn’t mean we will. These agents will make shopping easier, faster and I believe ultimately ‘better’ not because they will strip us out of the buying moments but will enhance the moments that we do engage, creating hyper-personalised, hyper-relevant material that will make shopping feel personal and empathetic.
The attention deficit & the empathy revolution
Shoppers have less attention and ability to focus than ever before, bombarded by ads and signals, with some estimates saying people see on average 12,000 ad signals a day now. In this congested space, brands now have just 2-5 seconds to capture attention (Adobe 2026). To cut through the quandary, these signals must ignite our synapses, trigger and elicit a feeling – only those brands that resonate will win.
Hyper-personalisation – Unleashing retail media moments
The good news? We sit on a treasure trove of data that can empower connections like never before. Integrating 1PD with cloud clean rooms like Amazon Marketing Cloud will rewire our view of the shopper and then AI will transform their application to understand who your shoppers are, how they shop, when they shop and how best to target them like never before. If 1PD and clean rooms are the looking glass to see the shopper, AI will highlight the most relevant aspects helping brands understand them, creating a pathway from insight into actionable and tangible execution.
This can be seen in retail media where AI is the ultimate differentiator, transforming it from simple product placement into a highly intelligent, precision guided revenue engine. By unlocking the full power of proprietary first party purchase data, AI delivers hyper-personalised, intent driven ad experiences directly at the point of sale, dramatically boosting relevance for shoppers and delivering superior, measurable ROI for brands.
‘The 2 percent that changed everything’
This impact can be seen in brands leading the way with cloud clean room adoption, as a clear example VML x Colgate Palmolive brought Machine learning and 1PD into AMC to find that just 2 percent of shoppers drove 82.5 percent of sales. By crafting richer, hyper-targeted audience segmentation – ROAS increased +65 percent, CPCs fell -43 percent and new to brand grew +24 percent (effectively more high-value shoppers, converting more often for less). AI takes the deep ocean of consumer insight and hands the keys to creating personalised targeting that can unlock more.
Today, we see AI’s touch across our everyday interactions from tailored search ads based on audience profiling at a keyword level, to bespoke UX on retailer platforms predicated on thousands of data signals triggering a placement. They aim to create more relevant, immersive moments and for the most part they work – we are spending more and staying longer.
Bespoke UI on an Amazon page – almost every placement crafted by AI to be relevant.
Retailers like Amazon are leading the way at weaving AI into the fabric of hyper-personalised experience with server AD insertion (SSAI) and dynamic AD insertion (DAI) empowering simulcasting of bespoke video ads to multiple audiences. This simulcasting is best displayed while watching live events on Prime video – tailored creative which is contextually targeted to be relevant to you as an audience while basking in the positive halo of engaging with your favourite sporting on dramatic moments.
This concept of hyper-personalised contextual targeting has further been elevated by the launch of AI pause ads – here which aims to make advertising feel less intrusive. AI adapts creative based on the media being consumed in partnership with extensive data signals to craft something that feels more personal and more impactful.
Predictive commerce – Partner with AI agents to craft GEO optimised content
Tomorrow, AI will go so much further – we move from an age of reactive contextual targeting to true needs driven anticipation. Agentic AI that is predictive of our needs and will tailor offers around expectation. TikTok’s highly effective algorithm (Monolith) is often regarded as the gold standard, where users will stay longer and engage more as the content served feels directly crafted around our wants and desires.
For brands, context is king on shaping rich experiences. Agentic AI will leverage content to shape the proactive prompts it serves, if you are not creating compelling GEO relevant product pages for Rufus, Sparky, Gemini, ChatGPT etc, then the consumer will not get your range served on the prompts that matter and the brand will not be surfaced in either organic or paid recommendations.
As consumers shift to researching via prompt, this becomes an ever more important pillar to address (250m+ users since launch). In the new Agentic world where GEO has supplanted SEO, if the intent of the shopper is not explicitly addressed in the copy then even if the product on paper is relevant , the product will not be served as it does not fix a clear need state.
We talk about the media funnel collapsing. Yet, perhaps more significantly in a hyper competitive commerce landscape where CPCs can dictate share of voice and market share, the discoverability divide between organic and paid activity is collapsing with organic content playing an increasingly critical role in paid media performance. Brands can pay a significant CPC premium if their content is not optimised for GEO. Agents pick up ‘context’ and ‘intent’ in copy and do not discriminate, they will ensure brands that lag will face high CPCs and a hefty premium to participate as the product has low relevancy in the category. Treat the AI agent like a partner and incubate the insights available in the content and brands will be able to mould experiences and win discoverability like never before.
What to do next
Agentic commerce will transform the shopper journey, we can expect fluid, autonomous and proactive prompts to expedite and facilitate the path to transaction. However, brilliant experiences remain the beating heart of conversion and growth. Agentic commerce will not strip shoppers out of the shopping journey rather it will enhance and enrich moments that we as shoppers do engage. We desire moments that matter and will invest deeply in brands that resonate with our personal values.
To win in this evolving space, brand need to embed the insights and signals that AI and clean rooms can provide to shape and mould commerce interactions that won’t just transact but inspire and craft true brand love and connection in an attention deficit.
How to win:
- Make the shopper the beating heart of experience: Build around the shopper first – know who they are, how they shop and what matters to them for your brand.
- Develop & unleash clean rooms: Leverage clean rooms to transform brand understanding and integrate 1PD to drive CPC, CPM efficiency and CVR percent gains
- Build around GEO: Craft GEO optimised copy to be fit for agentic commerce, the algorithm (I.E. Cosmo) and the shopper.
- Prepare for dynamic proactive experience prompts: Agentic commerce will actively suggest and streamline the purchasing journey, be flexible with creative to maximise the potential
- Break siloes & flatten the discoverability divide: Bridge the discoverability divide by integrating planning between paid (retail media) and organic (content) teams for a true ‘digital shelf approach’.
Above all put empathy and care in your touchpoints and creative, more doesn’t always mean better for the consumer, only those brands that cut through the noise will win.
From the world of Wall E to Bladerunner where ads are personalised to the shopper at every moment, engagements can be intrusive and unwelcome. The onus sits with us, the marketers and brands to create rich immersive moments that matter to connect an agentic commerce world with experiences that truly resonate.
