Online shopping has never been more popular than it is now, with a reported 21% of retail transactions taking place on the internet. While platforms like Amazon and eBay have long been staples in the online shopping world, things have ramped up. It’s never been easier to do your grocery shopping online, allowing the local store to bring your food to your door. Gone are the days of having to walk through a store and stand in long lines to check out.

However, the power of AI in online shopping is taking the world of online retail to the next level. Imagine shopping for a product online, and instead of doing a Google search to find the product you want, telling ChatGPT that you want to buy a specific item, before the AI platform returns three tailored options, complete with price comparisons and reviews. That’s the future of online shopping, and it’s changing the landscape for shoppers and retailers alike.

From Search Bars to Personal Shopping Assistance

Historically, online shopping platforms have funneled shoppers through search engines and marketplaces. While you used to go through multiple steps that included Googling review sites and shopping on Amazon, AI is collapsing those steps. Modern conversational models can synthesize product specs, surface relevant customer reviews, flag price history, and factor in your stated preferences. Some of these systems are already testing or offering in-conversation “buy” buttons and one-click checkouts that never force the user to leave the chat.

In a technical sense, this is more of an evolution than a revolution. Catalogs, product feeds, customer reviews, and payment rails are still part of the equation. However, AI is now stitching all of those features into a single, agentic flow. While online shopping tools used to return links, AI-powered shopping provides choices and actions. While this is a convenience upgrade for shoppers, it’s a game-changer for platforms that used to monetize clicks and ads, as they now face rivals that could route purchases to other platforms.

Why Big Tech Sees Opportunity

Big tech companies, especially those that are already actively using AI, have plenty of reasons to jump into the world of online shopping. Unlike older models that required the user to search for a product, AI in online shopping relies on personalization. A conversational chat agent remembers previous preferences and questions and can proactively consider tradeoffs, including price vs. durability and fit vs. brand preferences.

To make things even more appealing, this evolution allows these platforms to own the checkout, which means they can capture the final, highest-value moment of the transaction. This includes payment processing fees, fulfillment data, returns flow, and post-purchase engagement.

Why Retailers Are Pushing Back

Not everyone is happy about the shift to AI-powered shopping. This is especially true for online retailers who fear that AI assistants could bypass their storefronts, break personalized recommendations that power loyalty programs, and cannibalize valuable ad inventory. If an AI agent scrapes product pages and funnels users to checkout buttons, established marketplaces could lose out on traffic and the behavioral data that they rely on to sell ads and adjust their own algorithms.

To combat the rise of AI-powered online shopping, some marketplaces are updating their technical and legal defenses. Not only do these attempts include slowing or blocking automated agents, but some platforms are even launching legal complaints that focus on improper access or deceptive automation. This has resulted in a battle between technical possibilities and platform rules.

More Than a Technological Tussle

There are two different outcomes to consider. In the first one, AI assistants serve as neutral guides that collect options from the web before sending shoppers to existing merchant websites, where tracking, personalized recommendations, and ad models remain intact. In the other outcome, the AI platform becomes the storefront. Under this model, users make purchases inside the AI environment before the AI agent takes a cut or keeps the data. The latter potentially rewrites who captures profit margins across the commerce stack.

The second possibility is also why companies are starting to hedge against the rise of AI-powered shopping. Marketplaces are exploring their own agentic options and creating tighter access controls. Industry efforts, which include the proposed “Trusted Agent Protocols,” are already working to distinguish between user-authorized AI assistants and bots that scrape, spoof, or commit fraud. Those standards matter because the difference between helpful automation and malicious automation is how the agent identifies itself, stores credentials, and respects merchant policies.

Questions Surrounding Privacy, Security, and Fairness

There are several issues that agentic shopping brings to light, including those involving security and fairness. How do you authenticate an AI agent so merchants know it’s a user-authorized assistant and not a credential-stuffing bot? Who is liable if an agent makes a purchase that turns out to be fraudulent or violates the terms? How will product rankings change if AI agents optimize for things humans wouldn’t consider? These questions are at the forefront of the minds of existing retailers and shoppers.

There are also several concerns surrounding fairness. Specifically, research shows AI agents can be sensitive to the way products are described and structured. Minor changes in listings could dramatically shift what an agent recommends. That poses a risk for smaller sellers who can’t match the content optimization budgets of big brands. There are also some concerns about AI agents favoring certain suppliers without a clear explanation. Academic and industry work is already probing those dynamics. Ongoing experiments in controlled environments reveal that AI buyers can respond differently to sponsored tags, reviews, and price signals.

Finding the Balance Between Convenience and Trust

There’s certainly no denying that AI-powered shopping is the future, but questions remain about what the process should and will look like. In the meantime, online shoppers should expect a bit of a patchwork approach. Marketplaces will likely work to harden APIs and bot detection, while AI platforms will add transparent identity layers.

Agentic AI has the potential to make online shopping feel effortless, since a single conversation can replace dozens of clicks. Still, it’s important to recognize that platforms like OpenAI and ChatGPT shopping are a work in progress, and what you see today is likely quite different than what you can expect in the future. Protecting your information is crucial, especially when checking out.