Agentic Commerce Summit Speaker
I spoke yesterday at the Agentic Commerce Summit in London on a panel titled… ‘Strategic decision making: trust, control & build Vs integrate’
Alongside Mrunal Bhagat & Ed Bradley we covered quite a lot of ground(!) and here are my top 4 reflections:
AI is already reshaping the customer journey (e.g GEO). Upstream, discovery is fragmenting and Search is no longer the “only front door”. LLMs, assistants, procurement tools & new AI surfaces are adding another layer of discovery > conversion. At the same time (though at a slower %rate thus far) downstream, decision making/ conversion are starting to compress.
Whilst SERP’s are going nowhere anytime soon; Performance will depend less on traditional digital funnel optimisation and more% on commercial readiness for machines (e.g UCP = Universal Commerce Protocol that will expand outside the USA soon). Structured product data, accurate pricing, real time availability, clear delivery promises, trusted reviews, heightened focus on site speed to return many more bot queries, etc.
On Build vs Integrate; hybrid was the consensus default (though that decision clearly depends on the business). Own what defines your commercial advantage + customer trust; Pricing logic, margin, DTP, segmentation, etc. Partner where capability is moving fast or not core e.g Orchestration layers, translation, fraud, identity, etc.
Ultimately, “all this AI stuff” only matters if it improves business outcomes (or enables longer £term opportunities > wards off bigger concerns such as disintermediation) e.g Revenue, cost efficiency, profit and LTV success.