The three biggest agentic commerce trends from NRF 2026 (opens in new tab)

Agentic commerce is moving from an experimental idea to an implementation priority for retailers. At NRF, roughly 75% of attendees said they were implementing or planning agentic commerce, while major platforms such as Microsoft and Google introduced new shopping infrastructure and protocols. Retailers are responding by gradually preparing their catalogs and building both third-party agent integrations and proprietary AI shopping experiences.

Retailers Are Moving from “If” to “How”

• Retailers are now focused on scaling agentic commerce while preserving trust, brand identity, and control.
• Stripe reported adoption by brands including URBN, Etsy, Coach, Kate Spade, Revolve, and Abt Electronics.
• More than 25 ecosystem partners, including Salesforce, Squarespace, and PwC, endorsed Stripe’s Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP).
• Microsoft’s Copilot Checkout will let users purchase from Etsy and URBN brands without leaving the chat.
• Google introduced the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), joining ACP and other emerging agentic commerce standards.
• Stripe says its Agentic Commerce Suite will support multiple protocols through a single integration.

Retailers Are Building Agent-Ready Catalogs Incrementally

• Effective agent shopping depends on structured, current product feeds containing accurate descriptions, prices, availability, attributes, and taxonomy.
• Large retailers may have thousands or millions of products, making full catalog optimization impractical as a first step.
• URBN began with high-impact categories such as dresses and denim.
• The company standardized product language, attributes, and taxonomy in those categories before expanding.
• This focused approach allows retailers to demonstrate value quickly rather than attempting a costly catalog-wide transformation.

Retailers Are Developing Their Own AI Shopping Experiences

• Retailers are concerned that relying exclusively on third-party agents could weaken customer relationships and loyalty.
• First-party AI tools can use customer and purchase data unavailable to external platforms.
• Home Depot’s Magic Apron provides website-based, personalized assistance grounded in the retailer’s existing customer relationship.
• Ralph Lauren’s Ask Ralph creates shoppable outfit combinations based on customer prompts.
• The emerging model combines third-party agents for product discovery with first-party experiences for deeper personalization and brand engagement.

Infrastructure for Agentic Commerce

• Stripe’s Agentic Commerce Suite connects a retailer’s product catalog to selected AI agents through the Stripe Dashboard.
• It supports checkout, payments, fraud detection, and order events.
• Retailers can continue using their existing commerce systems while adding agent-based sales channels.

Retailers should treat agentic commerce as a practical, staged rollout: begin with high-value product categories, improve catalog data incrementally, support major commerce protocols, and build first-party AI experiences alongside third-party integrations.