From Search to Shipped: Why Agentic Commerce Isn't Quite Ready for Its Moment (But That Is Changing Fast)

This IDC Market Perspective previews how fast the landscape is changing. Major players such as Google, OpenAI, Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, PayPal, and the card networks are introducing new agentic capabilities that hint at a future where AI can shop across markets on a user's behalf. IDC outlines the strategic tensions, the technical gaps, and the operational shifts that brands must address before this vision becomes real. The document highlights why preparation must begin now and what organizations can do to navigate the early stages of this transformation.Agentic commerce is emerging as the next major shift in digital shopping, but most systems today still assist with discovery rather than complete the full purchase cycle on their own. IDC explores why true autonomy requires more than smarter search results. It depends on AI that can make purchase decisions, handle payments, and manage post-purchase tasks with limited human input. Current platforms show early progress, yet they remain limited by fragmented data, legacy ecommerce architectures, and a lack of cooperation among major technology providers."There's a lot of noise in 'agentic commerce,' creating a significant challenge for technology buyers," said Heather Hershey, research director of AI-Enabled Digital Commerce at IDC. "The economics of AI-mediated transactions are not yet proven, and while agentic shopping will not replace human choice, it will compress it. The models are advancing faster than the enterprise architectures that must support them. At the same time, the standards race in agentic commerce is really a control race, and whoever defines how agents transact defines who participates."