Your next customer might be a bot, and it won’t care about your brand story

In 2026, agentic commerce will become as significant to ecommerce as SEO was in the 2010s. And that means that some of your customers may not browse your homepage, admire your photography, or be curious about your origin story.

Instead, they’ll query your API, scan your structured data and compare your delivery terms against a competitor.

Agentic commerce is when AI agents discover, compare, and buy products on behalf of ‘real’ shoppers. Research indicates that more than half of us are already using generative AI suggestions to help us shop, but it seems as though the buying experience is about to become even more automated.

Why AI buyers skip “fluff”

While regular human shoppers may tolerate slightly ambiguous sales copy, skimming paragraphs for dimensions or clicking around until they find the shipping information they’re looking for, AI shopping agents do not have the same patience.

AI shoppers work best with clarity, certainty and comparability. If your product page buries key details in long-form copy or omits structured data such as GTINs (Global Trade Item Numbers), clear specifications or defined shipping rules, an AI agent may skip over your products.

This shift is reminiscent of what happened with SEO in the early 2010s. Businesses that structured their data properly became discoverable. Those that relied purely on brand storytelling or prioritised flowery language over data lost rankings and visibility.

Due to the fickle nature of search engine results pages, many ecommerce shops have thrown out strict SEO principles. But “agent legibility” or GEO is becoming an increasingly important requirement for driving traffic and staying competitive.

Structured data is becoming a competitive advantage

Large retailers already prioritise keeping product feeds clean, sticking to standardised specifications, and maintaining API accessibility.

But smaller ecommerce brands often focus more on nailing a unique aesthetic and authentic tone of voice. While this still matters for human buyers, it may not be enough for agentic shoppers.

AI agents comparing two similar products will likely choose the one that has:

• Clear dimensions, materials and technical specifications
• Transparent delivery fees and timeframes
• Defined returns eligibility and windows
• Standard identifiers such as GTINs
• Consistent pricing across channels

If one online store clearly presents that information in structured tables and machine-readable formats, and another hides it in marketing copy, the former will come out on top.

What should SMEs do now?

Working towards becoming ‘agent legible’ doesn’t require you to rebuild your online store from the ground up, but it might help to perform an AI readability audit.

We’d recommend starting with your top ten SKUs and checking the following:

• Are technical specifications listed clearly in table format?
• Are dimensions, materials and compatibility details explicit?
• Is your shipping policy clearly defined with timeframes and costs?
• Are returns terms unambiguous and easy to extract?
• Are GTINs and product identifiers correctly embedded?

As AI agents increasingly handle repeat purchases and product comparisons, being machine-readable will become a baseline requirement for online stores.

But this doesn’t mean you should throw out emotive brand storytelling, tone of voice or eye-catching design entirely, of course — human shoppers will still be swayed by brands that also offer that particular look and feel.