Source: Intelligence Node (November 2025)
Large CPG Brands for many years now have been allowing themselves to be commoditized by Amazon who became the primary point of digital commerce related engagement with consumers. This recent report from Agentic Systems for Commerce (a division of the IPG agency), shows how big this commoditization is. In practically every category, major CPG brands have less than 50% share. This is because independent sellers (many DTC brands) have mastered the art of updating marketplace/PDP content and producing products that look similar and often cost less than major brands and paying for their products to show up first. What should have been a 3-party ecosystem – brand, retailer and consumer, became a 2-party system i.e. consumer and retailer, with the brand hidden behind a commoditized generic PDP and site search structure and prioritized by retail media ads (pay-to-play).
LLMs (OpenAI, Perplexity and Gemini) are disrupting this model in a big way and restoring it back to a 3-party system (well 4 if you count the LLM itself, but that 4th party is currently Google). By replacing search with conversations, they are empowering consumers to comparison shop and narrow down their choices before selecting a retailer. They are giving the brand a strong voice (via AEO, GEO, GPTs, and apps) and enabling Retailers to execute quick and seamless agent powered purchases on their site.
The key changes ahead are:
- Bringing personalized store experiences to consumers, not dragging consumers into cluttered digital stores
- Better consumer experience encouraging discovery and comparison before purchase
- Opportunity for brands to directly influence consumers without relying on the retailers (who may promote what produces the best profits for them)
All of this happens while still allowing each party to do what they do best – brands educate and create awareness, desire and differentiation, retailers ease transactions and consumers ultimately win!