Picture a customer who first asks an AI assistant to compare offers. The assistant may help them choose and link to your website. In some shopping systems it may go further, depending on the service and merchant.
It's called agentic commerce — shopping mediated by AI agents. And because it's mostly written about in the context of American e-shops, it's easy to wave off as something distant. That would be a mistake. Let me explain why — and above all, what to practically do about it.
What exactly is happening
According to Adobe Analytics, referrals from AI tools to US retail sites grew 693.4% year over year during the 2025 holiday season. Shopify reports that referral sessions from AI chatbots to its storefronts grew more than eightfold in Q1 2026 year over year. The figures measure growth from different baselines; neither tells us AI's share of all visits.
J.P. Morgan estimates that by 2030 agentic AI could account for up to a quarter of US e-commerce. This is a forecast, not a measured share or a prediction for smaller markets.
Why this concerns smaller markets too
When someone asks an assistant to "find me a reliable accountant" or "compare solar panel suppliers", the answer may draw on a search index, live web pages or other sources. Which companies appear depends on the question and the service being used.
I already see visitors from ChatGPT and Perplexity in my own website analytics. For a small business, it makes sense to describe its offer clearly and keep its website accessible. The impact needs measuring, not assuming.
How an AI agent "sees" your website
Assistants work in different ways: some use a search index, some fetch pages, and browser agents may even examine the rendered page. What helps across these approaches is making essential information easy to access and understand.
Three practical recommendations follow:
Make essential content available without complex rendering. Google renders JavaScript, but not every crawler does, and rendering can take time. Keep services, prices and contact details in the initial HTML when practical.
Put key details in text too. Some assistants can analyse images, but a price list or phone number shown only in a graphic is harder for people and machines to access. Text is also easier to update and quote.
Keep structured data consistent with the page. Schema.org can help with some search features, but Google requires no special markup for AI results. Accurate, current content visible to visitors matters more.
What to actually do — in order of importance
1. Check access to essential information. Load your website with JavaScript disabled and see whether services, contact details and any prices are available. If they are missing, also inspect the rendered page in Google Search Console.
2. Explain the offer and pricing clearly. If you can publish a fixed price or range, put it on the page with what it includes. For custom work, explain how you calculate the quote. Add structured data only when it matches visible content.
3. Review access rules. Check robots.txt and server settings for blocks on search engines and services where you want to be found. AI companies use different crawlers for different purposes; check what each one does before changing the rules.
4. Answer real customer questions. "How much does… cost", "how long does… take", "does it work with…" — clear answers help visitors and may also appear in search. Write FAQs from actual customer questions, not for a supposed AI trick.
If this list reminds you of good SEO, that's no coincidence. Most of the preparation for agents overlaps with what helps a site in classic search engines — I build websites this way from the start, and it works for both worlds at once.
What not to do
Don't panic-buy "AEO packages". The same wave of overpriced services that once grew around SEO is now growing around AI search optimisation. Most of what you need is described above, and it's ordinary craftsmanship, not magic.
Don't fake data. Inflated reviews and invented ratings in structured data are tempting, because "only a machine reads it". But agents increasingly verify claims across multiple sources — and an inconsistency is a worse signal than a missing value. The same rule as with people: trust builds slowly and evaporates fast.
Don't rebuild your site for fashion's sake. If your site serves people well today, it doesn't need a rebuild — it needs machine readability added. That's an order of magnitude smaller job.
An honest conclusion
Shopping AI agents are still a small part of the market in many countries. It nevertheless makes sense to improve the accessibility and clarity of your offer now: that helps customers and may help search engines too. Measure the return on further work through visits and enquiries.
When someone next finds your website through an AI assistant, both clear information and the experience on the site may matter. A visitor still needs to understand what you offer and how to contact you.
Frequently asked questions about shopping AI agents
As part of an AI audit I'll go through your site with AI crawlers' eyes — what they read, what they're missing and what specifically to add, ranked by impact. No panic and no overpriced packages.
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