AI Is About to Go On a Shopping Spree—with Your Credit Card

TL;DR

Google dropped two bombshells that shook ecommerce.

1. 🤖 AI Mode: Chat with AI to shop. No more browsing websites.
2. 💳 Agentic Checkout: AI buys stuff for you automatically. Tell it: "Buy that baby carrier if it drops below $100," and it will.

Google is now your search engine, recommendation engine, personal shopper, AND checkout counter. They own the entire shopping experience.

Shopify lost 5% of its value instantly.

What's next

🤖 60% of shopping will be on AI autopilot by 2027.

🆕 New brands will emerge—built for algorithms, not humans.

📈 We will see many more agentic commerce platforms popping up over the next 18 months.

🔄 Plot twist: Small businesses with better products might finally win back market share.

The real point

Your product information just became everything. When AI makes purchasing decisions for millions of people, it's looking at your specs, images, pricing, and inventory data.

Winners: Companies with comprehensive, AI-optimized product information. Losers: Everyone still treats product data like a boring chore.

Agentic commerce

Last week, Google dropped what might be the most significant bombshell in ecommerce since… well, ecommerce itself. At Google I/O 2025, the sleeping giant announced a series of enhanced features in Google Shopping.

I would like to focus on two of them today.

1. Agentic Checkout
2. AI Mode for shopping

I think that the concept we all have to get used to very soon is ‘agentic commerce’, which I believe will be the next step in the evolution of ecommerce.

And you should probably pay attention to this, because it will concern all of us. 

Basically, ‘agentic shopping’ means that you will be handing over your wallet and your free will to Google, and it will be doing your shopping for you.

1. "AI Mode" means that you will have a personal shopping assistant that you can directly communicate with. You practically won’t have to visit a webstore again and subsequently get stalked for weeks by poorly created remarketing campaigns.
2. "Agentic Checkout" means that Google can make purchases on your behalf without your final approval. Let’s look at an example where this can become handy… or dangerous (I’ll let you be the judge of that).

For example: say I want to buy the Osprey Poco Light Carrier. But I do not want to pay the asking price of $135. Also, I do not need it right now, since my girlfriend is not due for another five months. I can now tell Google to buy the ‘Poco Light’ for me if the price ever drops below $100.

Agentic commerce is not just about convenience—it is about control. Google is now the search engine, the recommendation engine, the influencer, the personal shopper, and the checkout counter.

And it has got the industry rattled. Shopify, bless them, lost 5% in market value the moment this was announced. You could practically hear the collective gulp from investors.

Now, here is where it gets personal. At Plytix, we have spent years building a tool helping the underdogs (small and medium-sized businesses) compete in a world increasingly stacked against them.

But it's Google’s move—is it going to benefit the little guys or the mega-corporations? Apart from Shopify, who else is literally s****ing themselves right now, and who should be excited about this?

My bold predictions for the next 24 months

1. The death of traditional product discovery

By 2027, more than 60% of purchases will be made by AI agents with minimal human intervention. Consumers will set preferences once and let AI handle replenishment, upgrades, and even new category exploration.

2. The rise of AI-native brands

New brands will emerge that are designed from the ground up to be discovered and purchased by AI systems. These brands will prioritise structured information over marketing copy, and product specifications over storytelling.

3. The platform wars 2.0

Every major tech and retail company will launch its own AI shopping agent within 18 months. They cannot afford to let Google control the agentic commerce gateway. This will create a fragmented landscape where brands need to optimise for multiple AI systems. 

4. The small business advantage

 Here is the counterintuitive part: this could actually level the playing field for smaller businesses. If AI agents are making decisions based purely on product merit, specifications, and value (rather than brand recognition or marketing spend), nimble companies with superior products could outcompete giants. I foresee a huge rise in modern technology enabling D2C brands who now have the perfect vehicle to reach their target audience without fighting the red tape of traditional retail.

5. The product information arms race

Here is where things get interesting for those of us in the product information management game. In this new AI-driven commerce world, your product data is not just important—it is literally everything.

Think about it: when an AI agent is making purchasing decisions on behalf of millions of consumers, what is it evaluating? Rich, accurate, structured product information. Detailed specifications. High-quality images. Real-time pricing. Inventory status. Sustainability data. Compatibility information.

The brands that win will not be the ones with the flashiest websites or the biggest ad budgets. They will be the ones whose product information is so comprehensive, so accurate, and so well-structured that AI systems consistently recommend their products over competitors.

The uncomfortable truth

The most successful ecommerce companies of the next decade will not be the ones with the best websites. They will be the ones with the best product information architecture that is truly AI-optimised.

This shift is happening whether we like it or not. Google is not asking for permission – they are just doing it. And they are not alone. Every major tech company is racing to build its own AI shopping agent.

I say this often in conversations with our clients: "Do not make the mistake of thinking that your product information is just another boring chore that needs to be done." The best brands out there understand that their products are their most important assets and that they can turn product information into a strategic competitive advantage. That means having defined content guidelines, a consistent tone of voice, and a strategy for optimising for maximum exposure across search engines and AI.

Want to know how that might look for your brand? Book a free consultation with any of our specialists.