Major retailers are increasingly embracing AI-powered commerce, a strategic shift that involves relinquishing some direct customer engagement and data control. The early weeks of 2026 have witnessed significant players like Etsy, Target, and Walmart expanding their product listings onto third-party AI platforms. These collaborations, notably with Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot, follow last year’s ventures with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, enabling consumers to make purchases directly within the AI’s conversational interface.
This trend signals a fundamental reimagining of how consumers interact with brands. Amazon and Walmart, for instance, are investing heavily in their own proprietary AI assistants, Rufus and Sparky, respectively, aiming to redefine the shopping journey.
Industry experts see this as a pivotal moment for online retail. “This has the potential to disrupt retail in the same way the internet once did,” observed Kartik Hosanagar, a marketing professor at the Wharton School. By meeting consumers where they are, within their preferred AI platforms, retailers are tapping into a burgeoning channel. Data from Adobe’s 2025 Holiday Shopping report highlights this surge, showing a 758% year-on-year increase in AI-driven traffic to U.S. e-commerce sites during November 2025, with Cyber Monday experiencing a 670% jump in AI-referred retail visits.
Katherine Black, a partner at Kearney specializing in retail, anticipates a deepening of consumer engagement. “More shoppers will rely on AI for purchasing, and across a wider range of missions. As retailers’ capabilities within these tools improve, adoption should accelerate further,” she stated.
However, this strategic alignment with AI platforms is not without its complexities. Industry observers point to significant trade-offs, particularly concerning data ownership and the potential marginalization of retailers. Deloitte’s 2026 Retail Industry Global Outlook indicates that 81% of retail executives believe generative AI will erode brand loyalty by 2027.
Traditionally, a retailer’s website or app serves as a rich source of behavioral data. When product discovery, evaluation, and purchase occur externally, valuable insights are lost. “This fundamentally changes where power sits,” Hosanagar noted. “Control over the agent increasingly means control over the customer relationship.”
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has introduced new commerce features for Gemini, designed to assist customers from initial discovery through to final purchase. Nikki Baird, vice president of strategy and product at Aptos, raises critical questions about this development: “What he’s describing is Google owning the data across discovery, decision and transaction. Even if some information is shared back, missing context from those stages leaves retailers with a much poorer understanding of their customers.”
Pichai, addressing an NRF audience, emphasized Google’s commitment to collaboration: “From nearly three decades of working with retailers, we know success only comes when we work together. Our aim is to use our full technology stack to help shape the next era of retail.”
Yet, the seamless integration of features like instant checkout within agentic AI systems risks absorbing the entire shopping experience into a single platform. “If research, discovery and purchase all happen on OpenAI rather than Walmart.com, you’re effectively giving away the brand experience. At that point, the retailer risks becoming little more than a fulfillment operation,” Hosanagar cautioned.
Amazon, in contrast to direct integration with third-party AI chat platforms, is doubling down on its own AI initiatives. The company recently launched a dedicated site for Alexa+, its generative AI assistant for purchase research and planning.
Nevertheless, participation in third-party AI commerce may become increasingly unavoidable. OpenAI’s Instant Checkout feature on ChatGPT, introduced last September, hinted at influencing merchant rankings in search results, potentially beyond price and product quality. The uploading of product catalogs to AI chat platforms could be the initial step in a profound transformation of online retail.
Deloitte projects that by 2027, nearly half of retail executives anticipate the current multi-stage shopping process will condense into a single AI-driven interaction. While the industry is still in the nascent stages of this transition, Hosanagar identifies a key inflection point: “The real inflection point is when consumers rely on an autonomous agent to shop on their behalf.”
This evolution suggests a future where retailers engage less directly with human consumers and more with AI agents. These agents process information differently, require data in novel formats, and respond to persuasion in ways distinct from human interaction.
Currently, consumers can leverage ChatGPT on their phones, even while in-store, effectively consulting an always-on expert. “It’s not just the internet in your pocket,” Baird remarked. “It’s like having a highly knowledgeable store associate who knows every retailer.”
This development could prompt retailers to equip their frontline staff with AI tools, providing instant access to customer preferences or shopping histories. Alternatively, a retailer’s AI agent could proactively notify customers about the availability of favored items, empowering associates to convert interest into sales. Baird summarized the objective: “The goal is to enable store associates to perform at their best.”
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