Guest blog by Deann Evans, Managing Director, EMEA at Shopify
Commerce follows customers. Traditionally, discovery happened through search and social, but transactions primarily happened on a brand's website or in-store. Now, consumers are turning to AI agents to help them browse, find and buy products.
Shopify’sHoliday Retail Report found that 66% of UK consumers planned to use AI for at least one aspect of their holiday shopping - and over half (51%) of Gen Z shoppers now start their purchase journey on AI platforms rather than traditional search engines.
This shift is profound, and one that every merchant must understand to keep up with a future where embedded AI shopping is the norm, not the novel.
AI is reshaping how we shop
Agentic commerce – where customers can discover and buy products directly inside AI conversations – has the potential to transform every interface into a commerce touchpoint. Any surface that can hold a conversation and take actions becomes commerce-capable, whether that’s a search engine, productivity tool or personal assistant.
The data underlines the pace of this shift: since January 2025, orders coming to stores on Shopify from AI searches have increased 15x.
It’s therefore clear brands must optimise for how AI agents operate. That means making their product catalog machine-readable, understandable and consistent so AI agents can find, compare, and sell products accurately. The more structured, reliable, and transaction-ready a shop is, the more likely it is to be surfaced to the right buyers.
Open standards: the foundation for scale
For agentic commerce to scale, there needs to be a common language. That is the thinking behind theUniversal Commerce Protocol (UCP), an open standard Shopify co-developed with Google. UCP aims to standardise how AI agents transact across platforms, ensuring merchants can reach shoppers on these new channels as part of a wider unified commerce strategy.
Crucially, it preserves the merchant’s checkout experience, brand identity and customer relationships. When a shopper completes a purchase through an AI agent, the transaction still runs through the merchant’s own checkout logic – complete with loyalty programmes, delivery preferences and payment options.
This means brands’ online stores don't become obsolete, rather the operating system that steers the AI agent, while they remain the merchant of record, keeping control of data, payment, and brand experience.
From channels to orchestration
The most significant shift for merchants is moving from channel to orchestration thinking. Many already run a single commerce backbone across siloed channels like the online store, marketplaces and social. But with agentic commerce, the surfaces where discovery happens are multiplying — including search, chat and assistants.
The same orchestration that powers a merchant’s store and channels must now extend to every surface where AI-driven discovery is taking place.
To equip them for agentic commerce, merchants need a single source of product data that is structured, accurate and syndicated automatically across every surface. They also need portable checkouts that deliver a consistent brand experience, whether a customer finds them through Google, ChatGPT or their own website.
The shift is from managing individual channels to orchestrating an intelligent commerce layer that meets customers wherever they choose to engage.
A collective effort
Looking ahead, open standards like UCP are a vital step but they cannot succeed in isolation. The entire global ecosystem needs to rally behind AI-ready infrastructure, with collaboration between technology providers, retailers and policymakers to ensure that agentic commerce is accessible to businesses of all sizes.
The purchase journey is being rewritten. Consumers are already there. The question for merchants is not whether to participate, but whether they will own the experience when they do. Those who prepare now by investing in unified data, portable checkouts and open protocols will lead the next era of commerce.
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Ed is Head of SME Engagement and is responsible for shaping techUK’s proposition to our SMEs across the country, ensuring our policy work, market access activity and services benefit the SME community.
Prior to working at techUK, Ed worked in the at the Department for International Trade, engaging with a variety of businesses, particularly SMEs, to understand the benefits of Free Trade Agreements and act as case studies in press and social media. Ed has also worked in policy and public affairs within the voluntary sector, namely the Alzheimer’s Society and the Men’s Health Forum.
Ed holds a MA in International Relations from Leiden University, and in his spare time enjoys spending time with his son, travelling, and visiting historical sites.
Deann oversees the EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa) commercial operation for Shopify, the leading global commerce company that provides essential internet infrastructure for millions of modern, high-growth brands including Gymshark, Huel, Lounge Underwear and Ooni. She leads Shopify's strategy to help EMEA merchants sell on every surface and drive retail innovation hand in hand with Europe's most exciting businesses. In her role, she is responsible for regional growth by supporting and developing merchants and entrepreneurs, growing the partner ecosystem, and leading the team culture within Shopify's EMEA markets. An experienced technology executive, Deann's career spans over two decades in a range of leadership and C-level roles for ecommerce and SaaS businesses, such as eBay, Mettr and Sizmek
