Retailers examine options for on-AI retail

Big retailers are committing more heavily to agentic AI-led commerce, and accepting some loss of customer proximity and data control in the process.

As reported by Retail Dive, the opening weeks of 2026 have seen Etsy, Target and Walmart push product ranges onto third-party AI platforms, forming new partnerships with Google’s Gemini and Microsoft’s Copilot, after last year’s collaborations with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. These let consumers purchase goods inside the AI’s conversation interface.

Amazon and Walmart have been investing in their own consumer-facing AI assistants, Rufus and Sparky respectively to change how shoppers interact with their brands.

Agentic AI is beginning to redraw direct-to-consumer engagement, and industry figures regard this trend as an important moment in online retail. “I think this has the potential to disrupt retail in the same way the internet once did,” Kartik Hosanagar, a marketing professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, told the website’s reporters.

Partnering with AIs like ChatGPT or Gemini engages consumers wherever they happen to be and may choose to shop. Adobe’s 2025 Holiday Shopping ...