Flashing back to The Dawn of Agentic Commerce event hosted by Accenture this August in San Francisco. Accenture Song Managing Director, Chip Knicker, highlighted in his recent post a lot of valuable learnings from discussions with industry leaders, commerce platforms, and brands.
Having had a few weeks to digest the content, I’ve been thinking a lot about agentic commerce: how it has moved from “What is it?” to “How do we create value from it?” At this event, our Chief Growth & Partnerships Officer, Jaimie Villacarlos joined leaders from brands, retailers, technology providers and the broader commerce ecosystem to tackle that question.
Several of Chip’s observations, notably AI discoverability, agentic commerce end-to-end transformation, vertical agents, and “start experimenting now,” particularly resonated with our CEO Diaz Nesamoney’s recent writing:
Discoverability is the new shelf space: agentic shelf. As Chip noted, shoppers are increasingly starting their journeys with ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and other AI assistants. Brands now need to be understood not only by consumers, but also by the agents helping them decide what to buy.
Diaz takes this argument down to the product level. Traditional catalogs were designed for keyword searches, specifications and filters, as opposed to questions such as, “What sunscreen would be good for sensitive skin during a summer trip to Greece?”
Answering that question requires product context: who the product is for, how it can be used, what needs it addresses and why it fits that particular moment, all in an agent-readable format.
Winning a place on this new shelf comes down to whether each SKU shows up in the right context of the conversations.
Agentic commerce is an end-to-end transformation. Chip emphasized that an excellent AI recommendation means little if the product is unavailable, fulfillment fails or service does not deliver. Marketing, commerce, supply chain, operations and technology must function as one connected experience that human shoppers expect, and increasingly AI too.
Diaz’s perspective adds that the shopper’s journey needs to connect discovery, experience and purchase.
That means enriching product catalogs to improve AI discoverability with use cases and lifestyle context; publishing trusted, structured information through brand websites and agent-readable mechanisms such as ACP, UCP, MCP and JSON-LD; and creating conversational and rich visual experiences through a connection with the brand’s agentic storefront that give shoppers the information and confidence to choose, vs another product listing or wall of text.
Vertical agents may become the next competitive battleground. Chip sees real opportunity in specialized agents that combine industry knowledge with a company’s own expertise and understanding of its customers.
That specialization depends on context. A beauty agent must understand skin concerns, ingredients and routines. A travel agent must connect destinations, seasons, preferences and availability. A financial-services agent must understand products in relation to a customer’s goals.
This is where DaVinci Commerce’s Agentic BrandStore comes in. Brands possess deep domain knowledge about their categories, products and customers. The Agentic BrandStore turns that knowledge—and the context surrounding every product—into a curated conversational experience.
Think of it as a personalized, highly knowledgeable salesperson: one that understands what the shopper is trying to accomplish, asks the right questions, explains relevant differences and recommends the products best suited to that individual’s needs for a specific use case.
A general-purpose assistant may help a shopper enter the category. A brand’s vertical agent, manifested as the Agentic BrandStore, can take the conversation further: moving the shopper from interest, to understanding, and ultimately toward a purchase decision.
Start before you’re ready. Here’s one of Chip’s favorite messages, and perhaps the most practical advice for brands and retailers who are on the fence:
Organizations should not wait for perfect data or a fully formed operating model. AI-referred shoppers are already arriving, better informed and showing strong purchase intent, while AI platforms continue to change how they find and evaluate product information.
Start with a focused use case. Measure which products appear in relevant AI conversations. Identify the missing context. Enrich a priority group of SKUs, publish that information through AI-readable mechanisms and learn from the results.
That is where Accenture and DaVinci Commerce bring together complementary strengths:
Accenture helps enterprise brands, large DTC merchants and retailers transform the strategy, data foundations, operating models and organizational capabilities required for agentic commerce.
DaVinci Commerce addresses the product-discovery and experience layer—using deep, SKU-level product context to help AI systems understand when, why and for whom a product is relevant, then enabling brand-curated conversational experiences that shorten the path from discovery to purchase.
This partnership helps organizations address both sides of the challenge:
- Build the enterprise foundations needed to operate in an agentic environment
- Make products understandable and discoverable at the SKU level
- Connect conversational discovery with commerce execution
- Create experiences that help shoppers move from asking to choosing to buying
The opportunity is for all of us to rethink how products are represented, recommended and purchased when AI increasingly influences the decision. Quoting Chip:
Brands are no longer marketing only to people. They must also become discoverable and understandable to the agents that customers use to make decisions.
Thank you to Chip and the Accenture team for bringing the ecosystem together—and to Jaimie for representing DaVinci Commerce in this important conversation. Looking forward to working closely with Elise C. and Accenture Marketing to bring examples of agentic commerce deployment success and learnings to this community.
What is your biggest challenge with product discoverability? Let me know in the comments below!
COMING SOON: I will be hosting the AI Commerce Innovators Podcast made possible by DaVinci Commerce in partnership with AI Realized to dive deeper into agentic commerce trends, how-to, use cases and case studies. Chip and Diaz will provide additional insights along with Forrester Principal Analyst, Emily Pfeiffer in our inaugural episode.
