You’ve probably been hearing the phrase “agentic commerce” a lot lately. It gets thrown around at conferences, shows up in your inbox from platform vendors, and sounds important – but nobody ever just explains what it actually means in plain English.
Let’s fix that.
Here’s the Simple Version
You already know how online shopping works: a customer wants something, they open a browser, they search, they click around, they compare a few options, and eventually buy. Every step of that process is driven by the human doing the shopping.
Agentic commerce is what happens when AI does that shopping for them.
Instead of your customer opening Google and searching for “waterproof hiking boots under $150,” they open ChatGPT and say, “Find me waterproof hiking boots under $150 that can arrive by Friday.” ChatGPT goes out, searches across multiple stores, compares options, checks inventory, and can even actually complete the purchase (yes!) all without your customer ever visiting a product page.
That’s it. That’s agentic commerce. AI does the shopping for the customer.
And before you write this off as some far-off future thing, it’s already happening. ChatGPT processes about 50 million shopping queries every single day. AI-driven traffic to online stores grew over 1,300% in the past nine months alone. On Shopify specifically, orders coming from AI-powered searches grew 15x between January 2025 and January 2026.
What This Means for Your Store
Here’s the part that matters most to you as an eCommerce store owner: when an AI agent goes shopping on someone’s behalf, it doesn’t browse your website the way a human does. It looks for structured product data. That means your site needs to have clean titles, accurate descriptions, real-time pricing, current inventory, and shipping times. If your data is messy, incomplete, or just not set up in a way that machines can easily read, the agent either skips your store entirely or gets it wrong.
It’s not that a competitor beats you. It’s that you never show up as an option at all.
That’s a totally new kind of problem. And it’s why store owners who are still on the fence about AI need to get off it.
Why You Need to Stop Waiting on AI
Look, we get it. AI can feel overwhelming, expensive, and a little threatening. There’s so much noise out there about AI that it’s hard to know what’s real and what’s just a lot of hype.
But here’s what the data says: 82% of small businesses have already invested in AI tools, according to the SBE Council’s 2026 survey. A QuickBooks study found 68% of U.S. small businesses now use AI regularly.
You don’t need to overhaul everything at once. But doing nothing really not an option. The store owners embracing AI right now are the ones treating it as a real channel to optimize their store for.
Shopify vs. BigCommerce: Which is Best for Agentic Commerce?
Both platforms are investing heavily in agentic commerce. But they’re taking different approaches, and which one is “better” really depends on what kind of store you’re running.
Shopify has moved the fastest. As of March 2026, every U.S. Shopify merchant has access to Agentic Storefronts which means once it’s setup in your admin, your products are discoverable on ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot. Shopify co-built the Universal Commerce Protocol with Google, and is one of the launch partners for OpenAI’s shopping checkout. AI-driven orders on Shopify grew 15x year-over-year. If you want to be in AI shopping results quickly with minimal technical setup, Shopify gets you there fastest right now.
BigCommerce is taking a different approach. They’ve been focused on making sure your product information – titles, descriptions, pricing, inventory, etc. is clean, accurate, and organized. Think of it like this: if your product data is a mess, no AI agent is going to recommend you no matter how good your platform is. They’ve built their platform so that data flows cleanly to wherever buyers are shopping. They also have a bit of an advantage if you sell B2B rather than B2C and while their B2B tools have been around longer than Shopify’s, they’re clunky. However, as AI starts handling more and more of the business purchasing process, BigCommerce may have an advantage if they can make their B2B integration better.
If you’re a B2C store that wants to show up in AI shopping results as soon as possible, Shopify is the clear winner. If you’re running a more complex operation – B2B, lots of SKUs, custom pricing, more technical needs – BigCommerce may be the better fit.
Either way, the single most important thing you can do on either platform right now is the same: make sure your product data is clean, complete, and accurate.
Frequently Asked Questions About Agentic Commerce
Is agentic commerce really happening now, or is this still hype?
It’s real and live. ChatGPT alone handles 50 million shopping queries per day. Shopify reported 15x growth in AI-attributed orders in the past year.
Do I need to be technical to take advantage of this?
Not on Shopify – Agentic Storefronts are on by default. On BigCommerce you probably will need some help with configuration if you’re not a technical person. The bigger investment either way is just getting your product data in good shape.
Will this replace my website?
No. Your website still matters. Think of agentic commerce as a new channel on top of what you already have – the same way Tik Tok is a channel.
I’m a small store. Does this apply to me?
Absolutely, and smaller stores may actually benefit more. When an AI agent is shopping for the best match, it doesn’t favor big brands over small ones the way paid search advertising does. If your products fit the query and your data is solid, you can show up right alongside major retailers.
How Your Store Wizards Can Help
This is exactly the kind of work we do every day. If your product data is a mess, we can review it, provide tips for getting it cleaned up and structured the right way so AI agents can actually find and recommend your products. If you’re on Shopify and haven’t set up Agentic Storefronts yet, we can walk you through it and make sure everything is connected properly. On BigCommerce, we can help you get your catalog organized and feeding correctly to the right channels. Whether you need a full data cleanup, help with integrations, or just someone to tell you where to start, reach out to us at help@yourstorewizards.com and we’ll have a chat!
Scott Sanfilippo began his eCommerce journey in 1994 by co-founding one of the Internet’s first online retailers, TheFerretStore.com, which was acquired by PetCo in 2006. In 2001, he co-founded the eCommerce design and marketing firm Solid Cactus, which was acquired by web.com in 2009. Today, Scott is the General Manager of Your Store Wizards and lives in Delray Beach, FL. Scott can be contacted at scott@yourstorewizards.com.