Imagine it’s 2027. You have a digital assistant on your devices – no surprise there. But this assistant does more than set reminders – it understands you, answers in a human-like voice with no lag and connects to all your apps. It anticipates your needs and, crucially, it proactively helps you make purchasing decisions.
Welcome to the not-so-distant future of ecommerce, where an AI agent on your smartphone becomes your personal shopper. For marketers, the challenge will lie in engaging with these intelligent intermediaries as they become mainstream before 2030.
Super shoppers
We’re familiar with chatbots handling basic customer service, but soon a new breed of personal AI agents will analyse your digital signals to deliver hyper-personalised shopping experiences. Whether you’re reordering your favourite snack or considering a luxury car, your AI agent will act as a trusted adviser, filtering out the noise and presenting options that fit your unique needs.
These agents may even broker deals on your behalf while keeping your identity secret. Using anonymised profiles, your AI agent could negotiate with brands without revealing who you are. It’s an approach that could drive more competitive, tailored deals while preserving the user’s privacy, which would fundamentally shift how brands and consumers interact.
Moreover, a personalised AI agent could broadcast your buying intent to brands in real time. Instead of scrolling through endless ads, you’d be shown offers exactly when you’re ready to buy, with brands bidding to have their offers presented by your agent at that critical moment.
Does marketing need a remix?
For decades, marketers have debated the balance between long-term brand building and performance marketing. Experts including Peter Field and Les Binet have argued convincingly that brand marketing builds enduring value while performance marketing delivers quick wins.
That balance will likely shift, however, as AI agents will soon be able to navigate even the most nuanced purchasing decisions.
For high-end purchases, intangible factors such as heritage, craftsmanship and emotional appeal are central. Luxury brands, for instance, aren’t just selling a product, they’re selling a story and an aspirational lifestyle. AI agents will soon be able to combine these intangible factors with hard data, such as specs and pricing, to shape their recommendations. In this scenario, investing high-quality content that tells your brand’s story – an activity normally associated with long-term brand building – could actually drive immediate results while also building long-term equity.
As AI agents rely on structured data rather than traditional visual cues, conventional ad channels, such as banner ads or paid search, may become far less effective. The focus will shift to ensuring that your product information is optimised for consumption by AI agents.
Your digital storefront and brand content must be designed to be “read” and acted upon by agents. The time a consumer spends ‘in market’ before making a purchase will shrink as sophisticated AI assistants parse both logical and emotional factors. Brands will therefore have fewer opportunities to influence a customer’s decision.
Tips on AI optimisation
So what can your brand do right now to ride this agentic wave? Fundamentally, marketing teams must ensure AI agents are able to navigate their brand’s digital channels effectively. Teams have plenty of experience perfecting user experience for human customers; the next challenge is perfecting it for AI agents.
Develop open, API-driven and semantic web platforms so that your product details – pricing, availability, multimedia content and narratives – are accessible to these intelligent systems and enriched with as much metadata as possible. This seamless communication will help AI agents feature your products and brand prominently.
In the very near future, ‘agent optimisation’ will be as important for discovery as SEO is today. Structure your digital content so that AI platforms can easily ingest, understand and rank your offerings, ensuring your brand is front and center when agents make recommendations.
Finally, start participating in dynamic, data-driven bidding systems triggered on consumer intent. Forge partnerships with AI platforms and test agile advertising strategies to ensure your brand is the top choice when a customer is ready to buy.
The era of the personal AI agent is fast approaching, promising to make the shopping experience more personalised, efficient and secure. As these agents take the wheel, brands must find new ways to ensure their data, story and value proposition cut through.
Whether through enhanced digital storytelling for luxury products or agile, real-time bidding for everyday purchases, the future belongs to brands that prepare today for an agent-led tomorrow. Embrace the revolution; prepare to appeal to customers and their agents in equal measure.
Ed Freed is the global chief transformation officer at Rapp, a precision-marketing agency.
Imagine it’s 2027. You have a digital assistant on your devices – no surprise there. But this assistant does more than set reminders – it understands you, answers in a human-like voice with no lag and connects to all your apps. It anticipates your needs and, crucially, it proactively helps you make purchasing decisions.
Welcome to the not-so-distant future of ecommerce, where an AI agent on your smartphone becomes your personal shopper. For marketers, the challenge will lie in engaging with these intelligent intermediaries as they become mainstream before 2030.
