Agentic commerce marks the next major structural shift in digital retail—changing how customers discover, shop, and buy across the entire e-commerce ecosystem. As adoption in Europe accelerates, first movers have a narrow window to seize an advantage. By the time shifts in customer behavior are visible in e-commerce KPIs, it may be too late for laggards to catch up.
The So What
Rather than simply adding another platform, agentic commerce fuses four interconnected elements: AI-driven product discovery, in-chat purchasing, autonomous personal agents that shop on behalf of users, and agent-to-agent interactions that enable machines to negotiate and transact directly.
For European retailers, brands, and online marketplaces, agentic commerce raises two strategic questions:
How will shoppers start their journey? As the e-commerce front door to retailers moves from search engines and online marketplaces to agentic interfaces—like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Rufus—the discovery phase is shifting from search to delegation. Instead of using search queries, price comparison engines, and browsing sites, consumers use conversational AI prompts, like “Find me white leather sneakers under €100 with good reviews and fast delivery.” The result: new rules for visibility, traffic, and influence at the very top of the funnel.
Who will own the checkout? Personalized AI agents can now execute purchases autonomously or through in-conversation experiences. In the US, these capabilities are already live—through Google’s AI Shopping Mode, Amazon’s Buy for Me, and ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout—while in Europe, they remain on the horizon. This creates an opportunity for experimentation before agentic transactions become mainstream.
Winners and losers will emerge across European e-commerce:
- The biggest players—AI platforms, digital destinations (including major marketplaces), and retailers with proprietary data—will leverage their structural advantages to win with agent-to-agent systems and autonomous services.
- Intermediaries risk redundancy, and brands without real differentiation will be squeezed.
- Smaller players—if they do not innovate—will confront rising ad costs, lower visibility, shrinking loyalty, and eroding relevance.
Dive Deeper
The US offers a preview of what’s to come in Europe. Traditional organic search traffic is declining by 10% year over year, and AI traffic will surpass it by 2028–2029. The result: more purchase decisions happening outside brand-owned channels. On the other hand, traffic to retail sites from GenAI browsers and chat services grew 4,700% year over year in July 2025.
In Europe, that shift is starting later but it is accelerating. AI search visits in Europe grew from 4% of organic visits in early 2024 to 8% in early 2025. They are projected to reach 25% by the end of 2026 and to surpass organic visits in 2028. (See Exhibit 1.)
Across Europe, many players are experiencing stagnating or declining growth in total traffic, particularly due to a decline in organic traffic. However, referral traffic from large language models (LLMs) is soaring. (See Exhibit 2.) BCG’s analysis of a sample of leading European brands and retailers found that LLM-driven traffic is up more than 2,000% in fashion, nearly 1,200% in luxury, and almost 7,500% in specialty retail.
Although LLM-driven traffic currently accounts for less than 1% of site visits, it could reach 3% to 5% within a year, equaling €30 million to €50 million for every €1 billion in turnover. (See Exhibit 3.) But don’t be misled by the referral numbers alone. As LLM product search increasingly diverts traffic away from brand sites, the overall impact from LLMs on the traffic to the sites—that is, the halo effect from being seen on the LLMs—is up to four times higher than the direct referral traffic. This occurs because more of the browsing and product selection now takes place within LLMs, with only the final steps of the purchase process happening on the brand’s site.
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Now What
Here’s what proactive European players should focus on now:
Optimize for AI and agentic systems. Answer engine optimization ensures your brand is discoverable by AI assistants, while generative experience optimization (GXO) prepares you for a world where autonomous agents make buying decisions. Several actions will help you be chosen by agents:
- Make your data and platforms agent-ready. Agents need structured, machine-readable content. Adopt rich product schema, clean metadata, and descriptive content that LLMs can parse easily.
- Monitor your visibility. Track how often your products appear in AI answers—not just search rankings. KPIs include share of model, position, citations, sentiment, and referral traffic.
- Earn authority in the AI layer. Ensure your brand is cited in trusted external sources, such as reviews, forums, blogs, and articles. LLMs rely on these signals. Implement GXO best practices to ensure brand visibility and performance—optimize for agents, not just algorithms. This will be PR 2.0, the next evolution in public relations—ensuring brand visibility and advocacy in spaces where AI agents operate and influence consumer decisions.
Build or join an agentic ecosystem. Not every brand needs to build an agentic presence, but those that can add distinctive value or create unique experiences should move early. The goal is to participate where you can differentiate. Whatever the chosen path, early movers will have a large advantage. Options include the following:
- Develop brand-owned agents. Virtual assistants like L’Oréal’s Beauty Genius, Ralph Lauren’s Ask Ralph, and Lowe’s Mylow already guide consumers directly within chat or app experiences.
- Partner selectively with AI providers. Test integrations with leading agentic interfaces to understand how your brand performs in AI contexts.
- Embed checkout. Let customers transact directly through AI agents—via in-chat checkout or branded app experiences—while maintaining control over pricing and data.
Protect your brand and data advantage. Agentic commerce will pressure margins and disintermediate customer relationships. The best defense is brand differentiation and data ownership:
- Foster deep customer relationships. Develop and nurture loyalty and more meaningful customer relationships, creating reasons for direct engagement with your owned channels. Consider offering memberships, subscriptions, and exclusive content to promote direct customer engagement.
- Differentiate with purpose. In a world where AI agents compare everything, real differentiation is the only protection. Unique brands, exclusive assortments, and value-added services are essential to drive direct traffic and promote loyalty.
- Focus on brand storytelling. Although agents can find the cheapest option, only brands can create emotional preference.
Agentic commerce is the biggest disruption to retail since the birth of online shopping, triggering a major shakeout. Undifferentiated platforms and look-alike brands will struggle to survive, while destination retailers, niche players, strong brands, and innovators in the agentic ecosystem will capture share as the market consolidates. This transition is just starting in Europe, giving every player an opportunity to protect its business and shape what comes next.
