Agentic Commerce
LECTURE
5min
Retail News
Optimi was present at two unmissable global retail events earlier this year: the One to One Retail E-Commerce in Monaco and NRF 2026 in New York. Two events, two continents, one single topic that dominated every conversation: agentic commerce.
At NRF in New York, the world’s largest retail gathering, bringing together over 40,000 professionals every January, the role of AI in purchasing processes ran through every keynote and roundtable.
It was no longer a forward-looking topic reserved for “innovation” sessions: it was at the heart of operational discussions, alongside supply chain and user experience customization.
The same tone prevailed at the One to One in Monaco, a European gathering particularly valued by senior decision-makers.
It is in this context that the leaders of major online retailers acknowledged the same shift: the AI agent is establishing itself as the new intermediary between the brand and its customer.
The browsing logic is giving way to a query logic. Consumers no longer choose where to go. They delegate part of the journey to an agent that synthesises, recommends and sometimes purchases.
« Tomorrow, the question will no longer be just about ranking in Google, but about being recommended by artificial intelligences. »
Twenty years of SEO built on Google rankings are no longer sufficient to guarantee brand visibility.
Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is the defining challenge of the moment: becoming a source that AI models consider reliable and usable.
The mechanics differ from SEO. A search engine ranks pages; an AI model synthesises sources it considers coherent, well-structured, and recognised as authoritative:
What Monaco and New York confirmed is that the window for action is narrow.
Brands that do not invest today in their credibility with AI models risk being absent from them tomorrow.
Without a solid GEO strategy and robust infrastructure, your brand loses direct traffic and becomes dependent on a new layer of intermediation it does not control.