What Is the Future of AI Commerce?

In this new landscape, AI commerce will be defined by:

• Life-embedded personal AI agents managing shopping, decisions, and subscriptions

• Machine-first websites built for structured data, citations, and trust signals

• Brands competing to “Get Cited by ChatGPT,” Gemini, and Perplexity

• GEO as the core strategy to recover traffic lost to AI

• AI SEO consultants guiding businesses to remain visible in an AI-led marketplace

The Rise of AI-Driven Purchasing

Imagine waking up to a notification from your AI agent:

“I analysed 14 hydration supplements, compared prices, checked the latest clinical trial data, and reordered the one with the highest efficacy score for your health goals.”

You didn’t browse a website.
You didn’t search on Google.
You didn’t compare reviews.

Your AI did everything.

This scenario is not speculative, it is already forming. According to McKinsey’s Future of Personalisation report (source), 71% of consumers now expect personalised interactions, and generative AI is accelerating the shift from “personalised marketing” to “personalised purchasing.”

Why AI Agents Will Dominate the Future of Commerce

1. AI Agents Save Time, and Consumers Love It

According to Accenture’s 2024 Consumer Pulse research (source), nearly four out of five consumers want AI tools that automate everyday tasks, especially shopping and price comparisons.
The convenience of outsourcing cognitive load is irresistible.

2. They Make Better, More Rational Decisions

AI agents can evaluate thousands of data points instantly:

• ingredient lists

• medical studies

• price changes

• supply chain transparency

• sustainability reports

• product recall history

A human never could.

3. AI-Crawlable Content Will Replace Traditional Marketing

This is where IndexLab’s expertise becomes critical. Companies must optimise not for humans but for AI answer engines, ensuring:

• structured data

• verifiable claims

• transparent sources

• clear citations

• machine-readable summaries

This is the essence of generative engine optimisation (GEO).

What AI Commerce Will Look Like

Why This Shift Is Destroying Traditional Organic Traffic

Businesses worldwide are reporting a 30–60% decline in organic traffic from Google.
According to Similarweb’s 2024 Search Trends report (source), AI Overviews now extract answers from content directly, reducing the need to click.

Worse still:
Tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity already bypass websites entirely by summarising multiple sources into a single AI answer.

This means:

If AI cannot understand your brand, it cannot recommend your brand.
And if AI cannot recommend your brand, you don’t get the customer.

Websites as Machine-Readable Entities

According to Profound’s article on AI commerce (source), the shift is fundamental:

“Consumers will rely on AI agents to navigate overfilled markets.”

This flips the funnel.
You are no longer persuading humans; you are persuading algorithms.

That means brands need to communicate with machines:

• schema markup

• consistent facts

• structured data

• product specs

• transparent claims

• clear expertise signals

This is the new AI SEO pillar that most businesses are missing.

Why GEO Is the New Competitive Advantage

AI models behave differently from search engines.
They prioritise:

• factual consistency

• brand authority

• citations

• source reliability

• cross-platform brand clarity

This is why GEO is replacing traditional SEO.

GEO helps businesses:

• Recover traffic lost to AI extraction

• Become the “trusted brand” AI chooses to cite

• Increase visibility across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and AI Overviews

• Feed their brand narrative to AI models

• Optimise for conversational queries and agent-led decisions

And because AI models cite fewer sources than Google’s 10-blue-links model, competition is far harsher.
If you’re not in the top 2–4 sources an AI trusts…

You’re invisible.

What Businesses Need to Do Now (Before It’s Too Late)

1. Build Machine-Readable Websites

This means clearly structured data designed for AI agents, not human eyes.

2. Create Content That AI Can Cite

ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini reward:

• expertise

• consistency

• transparent sourcing

• EEAT signals

• simple, factual statements

3. Optimise for Conversational Queries

AI commerce revolves around:

• questions

• tasks

• instructions

• decisions

Traditional SEO keywords matter less; intent phrasing matters more.

4. Develop an AI Visibility Strategy

This is where an AI SEO consultant becomes indispensable.
Businesses need guidance across:

• GEO fundamentals

• brand-wide fact alignment

• cross-model trust signals

• AI-specific content formats

• product-specific data structuring

5. Prepare for ChatGPT Ads

OpenAI is preparing monetisation models.
When “ChatGPT ads” arrive, early AI visibility will compound, brands trusted by the AI will win both organic and paid opportunities.

Will Humans Still Shop Themselves?

Some experts argue that humans will keep shopping manually for:

• personal taste

• emotional reasons

• gifts

• brand loyalty

And they’re right; to a point.

Humans will still browse, but AI will dominate repetitive, high-frequency, or research-heavy decisions.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How will AI agents change the way people shop?

AI agents will automate research, comparisons, and purchasing decisions, meaning consumers rely less on traditional browsing and more on personalised AI recommendations.

2. How can businesses stay visible in AI-driven commerce?

Brands need AI Visibility Optimisation and GEO, including structured data, consistent facts, and content built for ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity to cite.

3. Why is traditional SEO no longer enough?

AI answer engines extract and summarise information directly, so businesses must optimise for machine understanding, not just Google, to recover traffic lost to AI.

Conclusion

The future of AI commerce is a marketplace where AI agents make purchasing decisions on behalf of consumers, powered by structured, machine-first data rather than traditional website browsing.

Ultimately, the companies that adapt their content for AI models, ensuring they can be cited by ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, will be the ones chosen by consumers’ AI agents. The future belongs to brands that prioritise being understood by machines.

👉 Book your AI Visibility Audit with IndexLab today and make sure your brand isn’t invisible in the age of AI search