Think concerning the last time you shopped online. Now imagine that entire process — searching, comparing, buying — handled not by you, but by your AI assistant. Welcome to 2026, where agentic artificial intelligence isn’t only a tool. It’s your customer.
These AI agents work on behalf of people. They scan catalogs, compare options, initiate payments, and handle communications — all in real time. For marketers, this isn’t a future to anticipate. It’s a system they need to adapt to now.
From omnichannel to agentic commerce
Marketers have spent years developing omnichannel strategies, just for AI to return along and alter all the pieces. Autonomous agents don’t browse sites or navigate apps as people do. They act — and fast.
“Retail evolves from omnichannel to agentic commerce,” said Mark Menell, managing director at Silicon Foundry. “AI agents surface, compare, and buy for consumers. Retailers who expose catalog and loyalty data via APIs develop into agent-friendly storefronts and win share.”
In other words, in case your product data isn’t structured and accessible, it doesn’t exist to the agents doing the buying.
Dig deeper: Agentic AI, Decoded: A Practical Guide for Marketers
Agents don’t shop — they determine
Eii Promisel, also with Silicon Foundry, puts it bluntly: “Shopping, payments and financing increasingly move to autonomous agents, reshaping the end-to-end consumer journey. Banks compete not on app UX, but API access and trust.”
So while people still drive demand, it’s AI that executes the transaction. Your job as a marketer? Ensure your brand is visible, trusted and interpretable — not only to humans, but in addition to the systems acting on their behalf.
Agent-to-agent commerce speeds all the pieces up
“In 2026, a meaningful share of customer interactions will occur agent-to-agent,” said Gareth Cummings, CEO of eDesk. “Shoppers will use AI assistants to envision stock, confirm delivery times or confirm returns, and types will respond with their very own AI agents that may read order data and act immediately.”
Speed is the brand new differentiator. “Conversations that used to take minutes will collapse right into a single automated exchange.” Retailers with unified systems will thrive. Those with legacy tech and data silos? They’ll be invisible.
Consumers are ready for agents, but they still want selection
According to research by Incubeta, 70% of consumers say they’d welcome AI agents helping them shop. But don’t mistake convenience for passivity.
“Consumers will all the time want the liberty to explore, compare, and show pride in discovery,” said Shannon Millard, VP at Epsilon. “The challenge now’s to design AI ecosystems that protect that agency, ensuring automation enhances, slightly than erases, the experience of selection.”
Put simply: in case your AI experience looks like a trap, consumers will find the exit.
Dig deeper: 6 common agentic AI pitfalls and easy methods to avoid them
AgentOps is marketing’s recent must-have
Deploying agents is one thing. Managing them at scale is one other. That’s where AgentOps comes in — a brand new operational layer for enterprises running fleets of AI agents.
“Just as DevOps reshaped software deployment in the 2010s, AgentOps will reshape AI operations in 2026,” said Joao Moura, CEO of CrewAI, which provides cloud platforms for agents. “It’ll sit between engineering and operations and will be liable for managing fleets of AI agents, monitoring cost, reliability, and compliance.”
Moura adds that giant enterprises will start constructing internal “Agent Factories” — dedicated environments where teams can design, test, and launch multi-agent workflows that drive ROI while keeping oversight and governance in place.
How to make your marketing stack agent-ready
Let’s break it down. To thrive in agentic ecosystems, marketers need:
- Real-time responsiveness. Agents don’t wait.
- Structured data and content. It must be easy for LLMs to parse and rank.
- Integration with protocols like OpenAI’s ACP and Google’s AP2.
- Interoperability across your commerce stack.
- New KPIs, like “Share of Model” — a metric for a way often an AI recommends your brand.
In short: in case your system can’t discuss with agents, your brand won’t be in the conversation.
Dig deeper: How to hurry up AI adoption and switch hype into results
Don’t let hype construct a frankenstack
Kate Frost, head of optimization at IMG, offers a pointy warning: “My one wish for 2026 is that marketers will stop assuming that any AI anywhere in their business will add value and make things easier. I actually hope people will develop into savvy to the view that AI is just useful when used in the optimal way and at the precise point in their process.”
She’s right. AI isn’t a magic fix. “CMOs will need to take a position in taking the time and upfront investment to discover the optimal approach, define a rollout plan, and develop an appropriate change plan to make sure they don’t scare off all their talent. That way, the introduction of AI into their processes will provide massive ROI. Otherwise, things will worsen before they get well.”
SaaS still matters — when paired with AI
It seems that AI isn’t replacing SaaS. It’s extending it. A development counter to what many had predicted.
“In 2026, the winners will be those that mix the agility of AI agents with the reliability of SaaS to deliver measurable business value,” said Ross Meyercord, CEO of Propel Software. “SaaS brings the workflows, governance, and guardrails that enterprises demand, while AI agents extend productivity and speed.”
The next wave of AI agents won’t be confined to single applications. Meyercord said that as an alternative, they will operate across entire tech ecosystems — communicating, coordinating, and executing tasks in ways in which transform disconnected workflows into unified, intelligent systems.
You’re not late — yet
According to McKinsey, 62% of organizations are still in the experimental phase with agentic AI, and only 23% are scaling up. In retail, three-quarters are still in the pilot phase.
And yet, a report from Axciom found 97% of surveyed corporations expect conversational agents to be mainstream inside two to a few years.
So no, you’re not behind. But in case you’re not constructing agentic systems now, you is perhaps gone from the grid before you realize the agents stopped looking.
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