From Chatbots to Agentic AI Retail
Agentic AI retail refers to autonomous commerce agents that can hold conversations, understand intent, and then independently complete multi-step shopping tasks such as discovery, comparison, and checkout on behalf of customers. Instead of waiting for shoppers to click filters or type exact product names, these AI shopping assistant systems use natural-language input, behavioral signals, and product data to guide people through a full purchase journey. This shift goes far beyond scripted chatbots that answer one-off questions. Retailers are combining first-party customer profiles, detailed product catalogs, and engagement data to create AI-powered retail technology that behaves like a digital sales associate. As these autonomous commerce agents gain access to inventory systems, promotions, and merchandising rules, they can move from reactive support toward proactive coaching, timely recommendations, and continuous optimization of every visit to a store’s app or website.
Amazon Turns Its Agentic Shopping Assistant into a Platform
Amazon Web Services is extending its AI shopping assistant to outside retailers through the AWS Agentic Shopping Assistant, built on the same technology that powers Alexa for Shopping on Amazon.com. Amazon says this internal assistant drove nearly $12 billion in incremental sales last year, and it now wants retailers to tap similar agentic AI retail capabilities on their own sites. The tool lets merchants deploy conversational advisors that understand each store’s assortment, talk with customers, answer product questions, and generate tailored recommendations in about 60 days. An early example is an AI gift concierge for Kate Spade’s parent company, which asks about the occasion, recipient, and style before suggesting items. According to Accenture, more than 30% of online commerce could run through AI agents by 2030, representing about $3.1 trillion in transactions, highlighting the stakes of this platform move.
Shopify and Nosto Bring Autonomous Commerce Agents Inside the Back Office
While Amazon focuses on shopper-facing agents, Shopify and Nosto are bringing autonomous commerce agents into the merchant workflow itself. Nosto’s latest native workflow release for Shopify Sidekick lets commerce teams adjust and guide Nosto-powered product discovery and personalization through conversational instructions inside Shopify. At the OMR Festival, Ford’s ecommerce partner Autonative used Sidekick prompts to modify the design of Nosto-backed product recommendations directly within the brand’s accessories store theme. The result is less context switching and fewer developer handoffs, which reduces execution overhead for merchandising teams. Nosto is also building Huginn, its AI agent, to connect via MCP and power agentic workflows such as proactive merchandising insights, recommended actions, and future automated execution. This back-office agentic AI retail layer turns AI shopping assistant technology into an always-on collaborator that configures, tests, and optimizes experiences, not only serves customers.
DICK’S Sporting Goods Uses an AI Coach to Guide Shoppers in Real Time
DICK’S Sporting Goods is bringing agentic AI directly into its customer experience with Coach by DICK’S, an AI coach inside its mobile app. The assistant blends the company’s product knowledge with conversational AI to give real-time guidance. Shoppers can describe their sport, skill level, and preferences, and the AI shopping assistant responds with tailored product recommendations along with training “Pro Tips,” equipment education, and service guidance. The initiative follows DICK’S partnership with Adobe to build AI-powered digital coaching experiences, and sits on top of broader investments in AI-driven inventory management, RFID pilots, and omnichannel systems. By tying conversational commerce to inventory visibility and customer profiles, the retailer is evolving from passive search to active coaching. This AI-powered retail technology aims to deepen engagement, helping customers feel more confident in buying decisions while DICK’S gathers better signals to inform merchandising and operations.
What Agentic Commerce Means for the Next Wave of Retail
The emerging wave of autonomous commerce agents marks a clear break from the era of FAQ bots and basic live chat. Amazon is commercializing its internal agentic systems, Shopify and Nosto are embedding agents in merchant workflows, and DICK’S is putting an AI coach in the hands of everyday shoppers. Retailers that move early gain two advantages: they train agents on richer first-party data and they set customer expectations for guided, conversational journeys. As these AI shopping assistant tools mature, they will likely become a standard layer in ecommerce stacks, orchestrating everything from discovery and personalization to service and post-purchase support. Stores that invest now are not only testing new engagement tricks; they are laying the foundations of AI-powered retail technology that can adapt, optimize, and sell on its own as agentic AI retail becomes the norm.