Bot Shoppers Are Coming — And They’ll Rewrite the Rules

I had a great conversation with Evan Schuman, author of a recent article on bot shoppers. As the article describes, bots are autonomous AI agents that compare, select, and buy on behalf of people – are expected to become common within 2–3 years. The piece argues most retailers aren’t ready and will need to redesign the full buying journey for machines: product data, pricing, promotion, checkout, returns, and post‑purchase support. Key challenges flagged include returns at “bot scale,” who earns loyalty points, and new fraud/liability norms (analogous to early e‑commerce’s “Zero Liability” programs).

It also raises trust questions (is the bot working for the buyer or its owner?) and suggests retailers may need bot‑friendly – even bot‑only – storefronts with structured, API‑accessible data. Industry experts predict bot shoppers could reach ~1% of retail revenue by 2028, and urge retailers to enable “agentic” integrations that let automated decisions happen outside the retailer’s walls. A likely upside: richer SKU‑level data that benefits human shoppers, too.

I was quoted in the article:

“I think this really calls into question the underlying processes for retail today, (because) we are used to doing everything through a human lens,” said Frank Diana, managing partner at Tata Consultancy Services. “Retailers will need to optimize product data not just for human browsing, but for machine parsing — clear, structured, and API-accessible information becomes essential. This will “force retailers to rethink fixed pricing, loyalty models, and discount structures.”

The article was added to my media library.