Retailgentic | Consumer Behavior & Retail Trend

In this episode, we sit down with Michele Fisher (Global Director, Business Strategy for Retail & CPG) and Atanu Ghosh (Director of Agentic Commerce & AI Innovation), who sit at the intersection of Azure AI, Copilot, and real-world retail and brand Agentic Commerce implementations.
This conversation dives into how Microsoft is thinking about agentic commerce as a full operating model shift, not just a feature or channel.
From Copilot shopping to data infrastructure to ads inside LLMs, the discussion connects the dots between:
Highlights 
Conversational discovery is fundamentally different from search: The way people talk about brands inside AI systems looks nothing like traditional keyword behavior, and most companies have zero visibility into it.
Agentic commerce is not one thing, it’s an operating model shift: Microsoft defines it broadly: agents participating in discovery, decision-making, and transactions, not just checkout.
Copilot + catalog + data = the new commerce stack
Ads are changing from persuasion to evaluation: Agents don’t care about creative. They evaluate structured data, trust signals, and relevance.
Loyalty becomes infrastructure, not a program
The “frontier firm” is the North Star: A future where humans and agents work together across workflows, not just AI acting as an assistant.
Protocols like UCP matter more than people realize: Open standards enable discoverability across surfaces and prevent fragmentation in agent-driven ecosystems.
The funnel is collapsing
If your brand is still thinking about traffic as the starting point, you’re already behind.
In an agentic world, discovery happens before you ever see the user, and increasingly, without them.

Timestamps
00:00 – Why brands have zero visibility into conversational discovery
01:50 – Scot’s “Big 6” podcast goal and Microsoft joins the list
04:00 – Michelle & Atanu backgrounds + roles at Microsoft
10:00 – What agentic commerce actually means (and why definitions vary)
14:00 – Microsoft’s agentic commerce stack: Copilot, agents, data layer
18:00 – The “Frontier Firm” and human + agent workflows
20:00 – UCP, protocols, and why openness matters
23:00 – Loyalty, identity, and friction in agent checkout
28:00 – Ads in agentic commerce: from persuasion to evaluation
33:00 – First-party data vs. conversational behavior data
39:00 – Why most retailers aren’t ready (and what they need first)
45:00 – The real blocker: operating models, not technology
46:30 – Where to learn more + how leaders are consuming information now

👉 Connect with Michele: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelekfisher/
👉 Connect with Atanu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/buildingai/
👉 Learn more about Microsoft in AI: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/azure-ai-foundry-blog/the-future-of-ai-harnessing-ai-for-e-commerce---personalized-shopping-agents/4386980
🧠 Want to stay ahead in AI commerce? Subscribe and follow along:
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In this episode of Retailgentic, Stephan breaks down how agentic commerce is evolving globally, with a particular focus on Europe’s rapid adoption.
We explore why AI-driven shopping is accelerating faster than previous technology shifts, how brands are already losing visibility without realizing it, and what practical steps companies can take today to stay competitive.
From product data strategy to protocol wars to the future of loyalty, this conversation offers a clear view of where commerce is heading next.
Highlights 
Discovery is the new battleground: If your product is not readable, trustworthy, and rich in context for AI agents, it will not be recommended.
Agentic commerce starts before checkout: The most important shift is happening in discovery, comparison, and decision-making, not the final transaction.
Europe is moving differently, not slower: Adoption among younger consumers in markets like Germany is already very high, with many using AI in shopping workflows.
Product data is now infrastructure: Years of optimizing for search engines are being replaced by the need to structure data for AI systems.
Loyalty and identity are becoming core systems: Future commerce will depend heavily on how well brands manage identity, value, and customer relationships across AI ecosystems.
Protocols are evolving fast: Systems like UCP and MCP are shaping how agents interact with product data, pricing, and checkout layers.
Small experiments already create visibility gains: Even limited API exposure or structured data improvements can increase inclusion in AI-driven recommendations.
Agentic commerce is accelerating existing problems: Many of today’s challenges, like poor data quality and disconnected systems, have existed for years but are now becoming urgent.
Agentic commerce is already reshaping how products are discovered today, and the brands that adapt fastest will define the next era of retail.

Timestamps
00:00 – Opening and overview of agentic commerce
02:00 – Who Stefan Ritter is and his background
05:00 – Why agentic commerce adoption is happening faster than mobile
09:00 – What agentic commerce actually means
11:00 – Human vs autonomous decision-making
13:00 – Why context is replacing keywords
16:00 – State of agentic commerce in Europe
20:00 – Data quality and infrastructure challenges
23:00 – AI platforms and protocol landscape
26:00 – Loyalty, identity, and authentication of agents
28:00 – The three opportunity spaces for brands
32:00 – How AI changes product storytelling
36:00 – Events, ecosystem, and European perspective
37:00 – Deloitte research and discovery battleground
39:00 – Retail media and monetization challenges
42:00 – Practical roadmap for brands
46:00 – The future of agentic commerce
49:00 – Closing thoughts and where to follow Stefan

👉 Connect with Stephan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanritter/
👉 Learn more about Deloitte: https://www.linkedin.com/company/deloitte/
🧠 Want to stay ahead in AI commerce? Subscribe and follow along:
📰 Subscribe to the free Substack: retailgentic.ai
📺 Watch episodes on YouTube & Subscribe for updates: https://www.youtube.com/@Retailgentic

This episode goes beyond surface-level AI hype and into how retail organizations are actually responding.
Krystina shares what she’s hearing from operators, board members, and data leaders and why the biggest risk right now is moving in the wrong direction.
At the same time, we explore how agentic commerce is reshaping traffic, discovery, and brand relationships and what that means for the future of ecommerce.
Highlights 
AI is forcing a full end-to-end transformation of retail
Many companies are prioritizing the wrong AI initiatives, focusing on hype instead of P&L impact
A growing concern: “dark” or untracked AI-driven traffic is already impacting performance
Data strategy is becoming a core battleground: What do you give AI platforms? What do you get back? Do CRMs need to evolve entirely?
The real unlock for AI shopping is complex, multi-step purchases (travel, events, planning)
The industry is early, but pressure from boards and declining traffic is accelerating adoption
The future of retail will be defined by who applies it to the right problems.
⏱️ Timestamps
00:00 — The future of retail data + AI uncertainty
 00:47 — Retailgentic intro
 03:10 — Kristina Gustafson’s background (CNBC → Shoptalk → RetailClub)
 08:02 — Why RetailClub exists: AI needs a verticalized event
 10:00 — From “retreat” to “festival”
 12:00 — Intimacy vs scale in events
 17:00 — What “festival format” actually means
 20:00 — RetailClub themes: full AI transformation of retail
 26:00 — How Kristina tracks AI trends (75%+ of her time)
 28:00 — AI prioritization problem inside companies
 29:00 — Data, CRMs, and “dark agentic traffic”
 30:00 — Traffic decline + board pressure
 36:30 — Agentic commerce: what actually works
 38:00 — Why brands won’t fully disappear
 40:00 — RetailClub details + closing

👉 Connect with Krystina: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krystina-gustafson-908a5a14/
👉 Learn more about RetailClub: https://retailclub.com/
🧠 Want to stay ahead in AI commerce? Subscribe and follow along:
📰 Subscribe to the free Substack: retailgentic.ai
📺 Watch episodes on YouTube & Subscribe for updates: https://www.youtube.com/@Retailgentic

In this episode, we go deep into what agentic commerce actually looks like in a real-world vertical, and why grocery may be one of the most important battlegrounds.
We walk through the shift from “tools that help you shop” to systems that shop for you, and how that fundamentally changes everything from discovery to monetization.
We also unpack the tension between grocers and platforms like Instacart, the rise of retail media networks, and why owning your data, and your customer relationship, may matter more than ever in an AI-driven world.
Highlights 
Regional grocers are losing both data and margin to platforms like Instacart
Agentic commerce shifts grocery from manual planning → “do it for me” automation
Delectable combines food intelligence + shopper intelligence + real-time inventory
AI closes the gap between inspiration (TikTok/recipes) → instant cart creation
Vertical AI beats horizontal models with better accuracy, speed, and cost efficiency
Grocery e-commerce hasn’t saved time, until now
Retail media networks are massive, but broken by middlemen and inefficiency
Agentic advertising creates unlimited, contextual ad inventory
The future of grocery is about owning discovery, not renting it
If you want to understand where agentic commerce gets real, beyond theory and into infrastructure, this is one to pay attention to.
⏱️ Timestamps
00:00 — Who owns grocery discovery today
 02:05 — Intro to Delectable AI
 04:00 — Joe’s background in enterprise commerce
 10:00 — Why grocery (and why now)
 12:50 — The Agentic Experience Platform explained
 14:30 — Why grocery e-commerce hasn’t saved time
 15:50 — “Do it for me” shopping vs tools
 17:00 — Retail media inefficiencies and opportunity
 19:00 — The shopper journey (TikTok → cart)
 22:00 — Fundraising + early traction
 26:00 — Vertical vs horizontal AI debate
 30:00 — Instacart, data ownership, and margins
 32:00 — Why vertical AI wins (accuracy, speed, cost)
 34:30 — What’s next for Delectable

👉 Connect with Joseph Lee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephchiahsunlee/
👉 Learn more about Delectable AI: https://www.linkedin.com/company/delectable-ai/

🧠 Want to stay ahead in AI commerce? Subscribe and follow along:
📰 Subscribe to the free Substack: retailgentic.ai
📺 Watch episodes on YouTube & Subscribe for updates: https://www.youtube.com/@Retailgentic

Everyone is focused on how AI helps people discover products. But what happens after that? In this episode of Retailgentic, we go deep on the missing layer of agentic commerce: checkout, payments, and fulfillment. Because it turns out, the hardest part isn’t finding the product. It’s buying it.
Rye is building what they describe as the “Stripe for commerce.” It connects AI agents, apps, and platforms to merchants handling:
Checkout and order placement
Payment orchestration
Fulfillment across retailers like Amazon and Shopify
In short: if an AI agent decides what to buy, Rye helps it actually buy it.

Highlights 
Checkout is the real bottleneck: Discovery is improving fast, but actually placing an order across fragmented systems is still incredibly hard.
Rye enables real AI purchasing: They connect agents to merchants, allowing products to be bought directly from platforms like Amazon.
Amazon is a critical unlock: Most bots are blocked, but Rye’s API-based approach allows real transactions to go through.
Protocols won’t solve everything: Even if UCP/ACP take off, long-tail merchants and major players won’t fully standardize.
B2B is the sleeper opportunity: Complex procurement decisions are a perfect fit for agent-driven commerce.
AI reduces returns: More context leads to better decisions, driving return rates extremely low.
We’re still early, but close: One breakout use case could flip massive volume into agentic commerce quickly.
Agentic commerce isn’t just about what gets recommended—it’s about what actually gets bought.

Timestamps:
 02:00 — Meet Arjun Bhargava and Rye
 04:00 — Founding story and early vision
 08:00 — Contextual commerce → agentic commerce
 11:00 — What Rye does (simple explanation)
 14:00 — How AI agents place orders
 18:00 — The rye.com story
 22:00 — Amazon integration and why it matters
 26:00 — Payments, tokenization, and infrastructure
 30:00 — UCP vs ACP debate
 35:00 — Why protocols won’t cover everything
 40:00 — Where agentic commerce is heading
 42:00 — B2B opportunity and procurement
 46:00 — Real-world AI agent example
 47:30 — Closing

👉 Connect with Arjun: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arjunbhargava/
👉 Learn more about Rye: rye.com
🧠 Want to stay ahead in AI commerce? Subscribe and follow along:
📰 Subscribe to the free Substack: retailgentic.ai
📺 Watch episodes on YouTube & Subscribe for updates: https://www.youtube.com/@Retailgentic