The retail landscape is experiencing its most significant transformation since the advent of e-commerce. While businesses have spent years optimizing for human shoppers, a new customer is emerging—one that never sleeps, processes thousands of options simultaneously, and makes purchasing decisions in milliseconds. These customers are AI agents, and they're about to revolutionize commerce as we know it.
Recent updates to ChatGPT's web search capabilities with personalized product recommendations and direct purchase links, alongside the simultaneous April 2025 launches of PayPal's Agentic Toolkit, Visa's Intelligent Commerce and Mastercard's Agent Pay, demonstrate that agentic commerce infrastructure is ready now. The question isn't whether AI agent shoppers will arrive. It's whether your business is ready to serve them securely and profitably.
Agentic commerce uses AI agents to act autonomously on shoppers' behalf, handling everything from product discovery to post-sale. Unlike traditional chatbots that respond to commands, agentic AI in retail operates with full autonomy. These AI agent shoppers research products, compare prices across multiple platforms, negotiate terms, complete purchases, and even manage returns—all without human intervention.
The scale of this shift is staggering. Deloitte projects that 25% of enterprises using generative AI will deploy autonomous AI agents in 2025, doubling to 50% by 2027. Gartner predicts that at least 15% of day-to-day work decisions will be made autonomously through agentic AI by 2028.
As retailers rush to make their systems AI-friendly, they're overlooking a critical vulnerability: identity verification. The autonomy introduced by AI agents represents a technical milestone, but also a new category of identity challenge for organizations to confront. These systems, by virtue of their modularity and distributed execution, blur conventional boundaries around access control, attribution, and trust.
Traditional identity management systems weren't designed for autonomous agents. They were built for humans who type passwords, remember security questions, and can prove their identity through biometric verification. AI agents operate differently—they act on behalf of humans but aren't human themselves.
When an AI agent makes a purchase, three critical identity questions emerge:
Agent Identity: Is this AI agent legitimate and authorized to operate?
Human Authorization: Which verified human delegated authority to this agent?
Transaction Scope: Is this specific purchase within the agent's authorized parameters?
Traditional rotation schedules cannot account for AI agents' dynamic access patterns and autonomous operation requirements. These implementation challenges force organizations into insecure compromises: long-lived credentials, overly broad permissions, and credential reuse across multiple agents.
Most retailers approach agentic systems by simply extending existing API access to AI agents. This approach creates multiple vulnerabilities:
Fraud Amplification: Malicious actors can deploy armies of fake AI agents to exploit weak verification systems. Without proper identity verification, distinguishing legitimate agents from fraudulent ones becomes impossible.
Compliance Gaps: Regulatory frameworks require businesses to know their customers. When an AI agent makes a purchase, can you definitively prove which verified human authorized that transaction?
Accountability Void: Unverified AI agents introduce serious risks—from fraud and misinformation to regulatory violations. Without a way to trace their actions or confirm their authorization, it becomes difficult to prevent abuse or assign responsibility when things go wrong.
Scale Overwhelm: AI agents can generate verification requests at volumes no human-designed system can handle efficiently.
AI agents are redefining the core pillars of commerce—price, availability, and service—and acting autonomously on behalf of consumers, ushering in the era of 'omniagent' shopping. Mirakl recognizes this shift and urges businesses to invest in agent-ready infrastructure immediately.
The foundation of agent-ready infrastructure isn't just about product data optimization or real-time management tools—it's about identity verification that can handle the autonomous nature of agentic AI in retail.
Real-Time Verification: AI agents operate at machine speed. Identity verification must match that pace without introducing friction.
Scalable Authentication: Systems must handle sudden spikes in verification requests as AI agents research and compare products across multiple platforms simultaneously.
Delegated Authority Management: The ability to verify that an AI agent has legitimate authorization from a verified human to make specific types of purchases.
Audit Trail Generation: Complete forensic capabilities to trace every decision and transaction back to the authorizing human.
At Vouched, we've been preparing for the agentic commerce revolution. Vouched launched "Know Your Agent" verification to bring trust and identity to the next generation of AI agents, recognizing that identity verification must evolve to serve both human and AI customers.
Human-Agent Binding: We start with biometric verification of the human who delegates authority to an AI agent. This creates an unbreakable link between autonomous actions and verified human intent.
Cryptographic Agent Identity: Each AI agent receives a unique, cryptographically secure identity tied to its authorizing human. This prevents agent impersonation and enables precise authorization scoping.
Real-Time Authorization: Our API-first platform verifies agent identity and authority in real-time without disrupting the autonomous shopping workflow.
Compliance-Ready Auditing: Every transaction generates a complete audit trail linking agent actions to verified human authorization—essential for regulatory compliance.
AI agents are already making investment decisions and managing portfolios. Financial institutions need to verify that each trading agent is legitimately authorized by a KYC-verified human.
AI agents will soon manage prescription refills and medical supply ordering. HIPAA compliance requires verification that each agent is properly authorized to access patient information.
Fleet management AI agents are purchasing vehicles and scheduling maintenance. Dealerships and service providers need to verify these agents' authority to make high-value transactions.
B2B AI agents are negotiating contracts and making bulk purchases. Suppliers need to verify that each agent has legitimate authorization from approved human decision-makers.
The failure to address these identity challenges could lead to horrible security incidents, loss of accountability, and erosion of trust in AI systems. A compromised autonomous agent in a financial system could "cascade unauthorized transactions".
For retailers, the risks include:
Revenue Loss: Blocking legitimate AI agent transactions due to inadequate verification systems
Fraud Exposure: Accepting fraudulent transactions from unverified AI agents
Compliance Violations: Inability to meet KYC requirements for AI-mediated transactions
Reputation Damage: Security incidents involving AI agents reflecting poorly on brand trust
Agentic AI is moving from pilot projects into real use, evolving from supportive tools into autonomous commerce enablers across industries. Early adopters will capture market share from competitors who can't serve AI agent customers.
The businesses that prepare now for AI agent shoppers will:
Capture New Revenue: Serve the growing market of AI-augmented consumers
Improve Efficiency: Process high-volume, low-friction transactions automatically
Build Trust: Establish secure relationships with AI agent developers and platforms
Stay Compliant: Meet emerging regulatory requirements for AI commerce
Industry forecasts from Mirakl suggest that by 2027, half of enterprises using generative AI will incorporate autonomous agents, up from 25% this year. This isn't a distant future scenario—it's happening now.
The companies that recognize AI agents as legitimate customers and build proper identity verification for agentic systems will lead the next era of commerce. Those that wait will find themselves locked out of an increasingly autonomous economy.
The agentic commerce revolution is here. The question isn't whether AI agents will become your customers—it's whether you'll be ready to verify their identity, authorize their transactions, and serve them securely when they arrive.
Is your identity verification system ready for the age of AI agent shoppers?
Ready to prepare your business for agentic commerce? Discover how Vouched's "Know Your Agent" verification solution can help you securely serve AI agent customers. Schedule a consultation to assess your agentic commerce readiness.