This WTF guide, sponsored by Talon.One, explores how brands can make their loyalty and promotions agent-ready, as agentic commerce evolves from a theoretical concept into practical applications, and AI agents begin to handle the end-to-end shopping journey for consumers.Agentic commerce has quickly become a hot industry topic, as the technology evolves from a theoretical concept into real-world applications that commerce teams are actively testing and deploying. Major technology companies such as Google and OpenAI are racing to embed AI agents into their search, browsing and checkout experiences, and those agents are expected to soon handle the end-to-end shopping journey for consumers.
This marks a fundamental shift in how shoppers discover, evaluate and purchase products. By 2030, agentic AI is projected to account for 15%–25% of total U.S. e-commerce, according to Bain & Company — an indication that businesses won’t truly be omnichannel unless they have incorporated agentic shopping experiences.
In this new landscape, loyalty and incentive programs are becoming the defining factor in whether brands compete on differentiated value or on price. That’s because AI agents currently surface the easiest discounts to apply (or worse, discount codes that have been unofficially shared online), not the outcomes brands and retailers rely on like margin, retention or long-term customer value, which can be achieved through loyalty.
