Shopify is expanding its catalog access to more AI agents, with answer engine optimization (AEO), allowing shoppers to configure these agents to purchase products on their behalf. This move marks a significant expansion of the company's agentic commerce ambitions, giving more agents access to over a billion listings in Shopify's catalog.
How is Shopify expanding its catalog access?
The catalog consists of both items on and off Shopify storefronts. To set up the feature, customers connect an agent with their account on Shop, a Shopify-owned platform that consolidates orders, tracks packages, and recommends products. Like the previous Muse partnership, customers use the one-click Shop Pay feature to check out within the conversation with the agent.
Orders placed through the agent are funneled back to the Shop app. Shopify is marketing the feature as a "personal shopper" that humans can give rules to, like setting budget guardrails or only displaying products with fast shipping. Buyers must approve each purchase. This development is part of a larger trend in e-commerce, where AI-driven shopping tools are becoming increasingly prevalent.
What does this mean for the future of e-commerce?
E-commerce has become a battleground in the era of AI, with many demos of agentic tools ending with a transaction. The tech industry, including big commerce players like Google and Amazon, are investing in AI-driven shopping tools where the end goal is an "agent" purchasing things for a human user. This is also the basis of an ongoing fight between Amazon and AI companies like Perplexity — and more recently, Meta's Muse — over whether agents should be able to shop on a customer's behalf.
As the use of AI agents in e-commerce continues to grow, companies like Shopify are poised to play a major role in shaping the future of online shopping. With its expanded catalog access, Shopify is giving shoppers more options and flexibility in how they shop, and paving the way for further innovation in the field of agentic commerce.
Cet article a été rédigé avec l'assistance de l'IA.
News Factory APP - actualités agentiques pour booster votre SEO et AEO.