AI
Agentic AI may disrupt retail yet consumer caution in play
November 27, 2025
Agentic AI is poised to disrupt retail yet 50% of consumer remain cautious of fully autonomous purchasing.
Those are top findings from a Bain & Company report, "Agentic AI in Retail: How Autonomous Shopping Is Redefining the Customer Journey."
Agentic AI combines memory, reasoning and tool use to act semi- or fully autonomously across the shopping journey.
Generative AI has changed how consumers find and evaluate products — 30% to 45% of US consumers use Generative AI for product research and comparison, according to Bain's Consumer Lab's Generative AI survey.
AI now accounts for up to 25% of referral traffic for some retailers, though it is still less than 1% of total traffic, according to Bain's research in partnership with Similarweb.
"Agentic AI marks a major shift in retail discovery and loyalty since the rise of search engines," Aaron Cheris, partner in Bain's Retail practice, said in a press release on the findings. "These systems are beginning to act independently across the shopping journey, from product research to checkout, creating both disruption and opportunity for retailers. This is the moment to strengthen customer relationships, build trust, and make retailer-value obvious — to humans and to algorithms alike."
