Merchants Prepare for AI Driven Shopping Changes

The IDC report commissioned by WooCommerce warns that the rise of artificial‑intelligence shopping agents will reshape e‑commerce, demanding merchants re‑engineer sites for both human shoppers and their AI counterparts.

AI agents poised to command half‑trillion dollars in spend

Released Monday, the study projects AI‑driven tools will channel roughly $500 billion of digital spending to agents and platforms. For context, mobile commerce reached a quarter of retail spend in six to eight years, but hit half in just three to four years. A recent LDWW survey found 70 % of U.S. consumers already turn to AI for shopping assistance, and 30 % have let an AI complete a purchase.

Merchants must cater to two buyers

Heather Hershey, IDC senior research director of digital and agentic commerce strategies, says every purchase journey now includes a second buyer—an AI agent that reads and verifies product data. “When selecting technologies to support agentic commerce, choose openness over convenience,” she said in a statement.

Current software‑as‑service (SaaS) offerings, the report notes, are often inflexible for AI integration. Vendors may lock customers into proprietary ecosystems, silo data, enforce slow release cycles, and lack AI‑centric services. Such constraints could impede scaling, with only 45 % of organizations expected to have AI agents operating at scale by 2030.

They expect 80 % of agentic AI use cases to need real‑time, contextual data access by 2027.

The data layer is the foundation for AI agents. Unlike humans, who respond to brand stories and imagery, agents evaluate structured catalogs and machine‑readable metadata. They assess data quality, not visual design, and will not recommend a brand they cannot verify.

In practice, this means merchants must prioritize data hygiene and openness. A well‑organized product feed, enriched with accurate attributes, becomes the primary signal for an AI to surface a product. Companies that cling to closed‑loop SaaS stacks may find their offerings invisible to these agents.

Comparing this shift to the earlier mobile boom, the pace appears faster. Mobile adoption took years to reshape checkout flows, while AI agents are already influencing decisions today. The transition may feel abrupt, but the underlying need for clean, accessible data mirrors past technology waves.

Three strategic takeaways for retailers

Hershey distills the report’s guidance into three points. First, select platforms that favor openness, allowing data to flow freely between systems. Second, design experiences that serve both humans and AI agents in parallel, ensuring product listings are both engaging and machine‑readable. Third, treat the commerce platform as an orchestration layer rather than a singular tool, enabling flexible integration of AI services.

Merchants that act now can position themselves for the emerging AI shopping shift, while those that delay may watch competitors capture the growing share of AI‑driven spend.

They must act quickly.