Agentic commerce vs. traditional ecommerce: 7 Key differences

What is agentic commerce? 

Agentic commerce is when an AI assistant (also referred to as agent) has a shopper’s permission to complete online shopping actions on their behalf. With that authorization, an agent can handle tasks like:

• Searching across sites to find certain products
• Filtering items by preferences (like sizes, colors or prices)
• Comparing options
• Checking if items are in stock
• Adding items to a cart

In some cases, an agent can initiate — and sometimes complete — checkout, typically with safeguards like spending limits or a final shopper approval. These controls help customers feel more comfortable handing off the “buy now” step.

Agentic commerce is not a standard chatbot

Agentic commerce is not a standard online chatbot that answers questions or a recommendation engine that suggests similar items. While those tools can help customers with their decision-making, they don’t independently execute a chain of shopping tasks. Agentic AI, on the other hand, follows the customer’s instructions to do just that.

Though McKinsey research predicts that AI agent-driven shopping will influence $1 trillion in new revenue in the U.S. retail market alone by 2030, we’re still in the early days of this technology. For now, the default ecommerce experience is still built around humans doing the work, with AI playing a supporting role.

How traditional ecommerce works today

In traditional ecommerce, the customer does the driving. They rely on search engines to help find what they’re looking for, they browse product pages, open a few tabs to compare options, read reviews, add items to a cart and decide when to check out. The journey only moves forward because the shopper keeps pushing it along.

Businesses like yours can make the shopping process easier with filters, recommendations, chat tools and standout merchandising. But those are just assistive elements — the customer still has to move the needle from “this looks good” to “I’m buying it.”

And when something goes wrong in the flow, the burden of fixing it (or finding out who can) almost always lands on the shopper. Out of stock? Declined payment? The shopper is the one stuck redoing the work or giving up altogether. Agentic commerce is trying to change that.

How agentic commerce reworks the shopping flow

With agentic AI, the shopping flow stays the same, but the heavy lifting moves from the shopper to the agent.

The customer gives clear instructions like: “Find a carry-on bag under $200 that fits United’s size limits, arrives by Friday and has a hard shell.” Then the agent runs the discovery process end to end: it searches, filters, compares specs and delivery dates, checks inventory and offers the best option to the cart.

Instead of bouncing between tabs, the customer steps in at the moments that actually need a human decision:

• Approving the final selection
• Choosing between two close options
• Confirming a substitute when something goes out of stock
• Authorizing payment at checkout

In other words, the default model shifts from “shopper handles every step” to “shopper sets guardrails and approves the order.”

Agentic commerce vs traditional ecommerce: 7 Key differences

While the end goal is the same (an online purchase), the way customers get there changes, along with the signals you see, where issues can pop up and what your team has to manage.

In short: Traditional ecommerce is human-led and click-driven. Agentic commerce is agent-led and instruction-driven, with the shopper stepping in to approve key choices rather than driving the entire process.

What agentic commerce vs. traditional ecommerce means for merchants

For merchants, agentic commerce changes how customers find products, how checkout behaves and how you evaluate risk. Here are the shifts you’re most likely to feel first as agentic AI picks up speed:

Discovery may move away from your digital storefront

In traditional ecommerce, shoppers often land on your site early. They browse categories, read product detail pages, compare options and then decide what to do. 

With agentic commerce, more of that evaluation happens inside an AI assistant’s interface that summarizes your products alongside your competitors’. To stand out in that kind of environment, your digital sites must be optimized for generative search while remaining compelling and inspirational for human shoppers. Your offerings need to be easy to understand at a glance, particularly given that a subset of shoppers will check out within an AI agent’s interface. So, providing clear product details, explicit availability, reliable shipping promises and transparent return policies is a must.

The path to purchase gets shorter, so each step matters more

Agentic assistants streamline the shopping journey into a few key actions: shortlist, add to cart, confirm. That’s great for conversion when everything works. But when something doesn’t, the failure can be costly. If your sizing information is unclear or your shipping rules are confusing, an agent won’t push through like a determined shopper might. It’ll move on to the next best option instead, causing you to lose a potential sale.

More “what did I buy from whom?” moments

When an agent handles most of the journey, your customer may feel less connected to the details. They might not remember exactly what was selected. They might not recognize the charge from the brand on their bank statement. Or they might realize after delivery that the item wasn’t what they expected. That disconnect can lead to more support tickets, returns and even disputes.

Small gaps can lead to big drop-offs

When an AI agent is doing the shopping, small gaps in product information can quickly become blockers. If one size is labeled differently than another, if a bundle isn’t clearly explained, if certain items can’t ship to specific locations or if it’s unclear what’s actually included, the agent may choose the wrong option. Or it might move on and recommend a competitor instead.

Fraud and risk decisions get harder, not easier

Many risk systems are built around human shopping patterns and generally see bots as suspicious actors. Agent-led shopping journeys change that: Agentic shoppers now represent valuable customers. But agent-led behavior won’t always look human, even when the customer is real. That creates two problems at once: you can end up declining more good orders because they look unusual, and fraud can get harder to spot as bad actors train malicious bots to mimic real AI assistants.

It also opens up new fraud entry points that aren’t typically a problem in traditional ecommerce flows. One emerging risk is agent-level takeover (also called bot takeovers or BTOs). This is similar to account takeover (ATOs), but targets a delegated AI shopping agent rather than a consumer account. If a bad actor gains control of an authorized agent or its credentials, they can place rapid-fire orders on a shopper’s behalf in seconds.

As agentic commerce becomes more common, it won’t be enough to know a shopper is legitimate. You also need to confirm that an order was genuinely approved and clearly see who, or what, placed it.

On the bright side, there are steps you can take now to address these challenges before they become future problems.

How to prepare for the rise of agentic commerce

As Mike’s experience showed, AI can accelerate discovery and checkout, but the final steps still fall to the customer in many cases. Agentic commerce isn’t fully replacing traditional ecommerce today, but the shift is underway.

You don’t need to overhaul your ecommerce site tomorrow. But it’s not a bad idea to start making your storefront easier for both humans and AI agents to navigate, and to strengthen your systems that will need to handle new risks in the coming years.

• Make your product data clear and consistent: Agentic assistants rely on what they can quickly parse. If titles, variants, sizing or materials are inconsistent — like one product listing a size as “Medium” while another uses “M,” for example  — agents may struggle to compare options or select the right item. Cleaning this up helps keep your products in the running when agents build carts.
• Smooth out checkout friction: Remove unnecessary redirects, pop-ups and vague error messages so real customers (and agents) can move through to checkout smoothly. And avoid needless delays and declines due to overly conservative fraud-review processes and reviews.
• Investigate unusual behavior first before declining: Agent sessions won’t always look like a typical human shopper. If your risk systems rely too much on familiar session patterns and static rules, you may end up declining good orders. Revisit your bot rules and velocity thresholds to avoid false declines.
• Protect against BTOs and agent impersonation: Add extra checks to confirm AI agent identity, flag unusual delegation patterns and monitor for suspicious transaction volumes by agents. Consider adopting a solution like Signifyd’s Commerce Protection Platform to detect abnormal behavior and emerging threats in real time, so you can stop fraud early.
• Strengthen what happens post-purchase: Since customers feel less connected to agentic purchases, your post-purchase experience becomes even more important. Clear confirmations, easy returns and fast support reduce confusion that can turn into disputes. Offering instant refunds to trusted customers can also turn potential frustration post-purchase into stronger loyalty.

Future‑proof your business for agentic commerce

As shopping habits change, protecting revenue and customer experience comes down to trust between you, your customers and the agents acting on their behalf. It depends on clearly seeing who placed the order, confirming the shopper approved it and verifying those details without accidentally turning good customers away.

Signifyd helps ecommerce businesses like yours strike that balance. With Guaranteed Fraud Protection, you can approve more legitimate transactions while still stopping fraud, even when agent-led orders don’t follow familiar patterns. And with solutions like Returns Insights and Instant Refunds, you can reduce post-purchase confusion and manage returns based on risk — all while keeping the experience seamless for your genuine customers.

Want a deeper look at how agentic commerce is evolving and what it could mean for your business? Read our whitepaper.

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