Agentic commerce: how to make your webshop findable for AI agents

Adobe Analytics registered a growth of 4,700% in traffic from generative AI to American webshops in July 2025, compared to the same month a year earlier. Salesforce reported that AI and agents influenced 20% of all orders globally during Cyber Week 2025 via personalised recommendations and customer service. And in 2025, OpenAI launched a shopping feature that allows people to order products directly in ChatGPT, without ever visiting your website.

This is not science fiction. The customer journey is already changing today, and for Belgian webshops it pays to position yourself now, before the rest catches on.

What is agentic commerce and why is it relevant for your webshop?

Agentic commerce is the model in which an AI agent such as ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google Gemini independently searches for, compares and purchases products on behalf of a user. The consumer gives instructions (“find the best leather backpack under 150 euros”), the agent does the rest.

The fundamental difference from classic online shopping: the AI does not go to your webshop to browse. It retrieves information from structured product data, feeds and APIs. Those who do not offer machine-readable data simply do not exist in that channel.

GEO optimisation, being findable in AI search engines, lays exactly the same technical foundation as agentic commerce. It is not a separate track, it is the same investment with a broader return.

Which AI platforms are already live for e-commerce?

In the final months of 2025, four concrete platforms were launched that fundamentally change the customer journey.

ChatGPT shopping: OpenAI launched a shopping feature in 2025 that allows Shopify and other merchants to make their products purchasable within ChatGPT conversations. The integration runs through existing checkout infrastructure.

Perplexity Instant Buy (November 2025): via a partnership with PayPal, merchants can sell products from Perplexity search queries. Users pay without leaving the search interface.

Google Agentic Checkout (November 2025): Google Pay detects price drops and can complete purchases for products users have previously saved.

Amazon Rufus: already active for longer and processes hundreds of millions of search queries per month. It is the largest-scale AI shopping platform in the world.

“Sell your products wherever AI conversations happen, not just in your own store, but also in the AI tools your customers already use daily.”

— Shopify, Winter ‘26 Edition

Is Shopify already ready for agentic commerce?

Yes, and further along than most merchants realise. With the Winter ‘26 Edition (December 2025), Shopify launched three concrete tools.

Agentic Storefronts: a one-click setup that automatically distributes your product catalogue to ChatGPT, Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot. After activation, an MCP endpoint automatically runs for your store.

Catalog API: AI agents gain access to your complete product data via a standardised interface, including prices, stock, specifications and returns policy. Real-time and machine-readable.

ChatGPT checkout integration: Shopify products are directly purchasable from ChatGPT without the buyer leaving the chat interface.

An important nuance: Shopify Sidekick is something different. Sidekick is a management tool that helps you as a retailer via AI, for sales analyses, automations and content generation. It is not a shopping agent for consumers. This confusion regularly leads to wrong expectations.

Want to know more about how your Shopify webshop performs optimally? Check out our page on conversion optimisation.

How do AI agents compare products and what does that mean for your data?

AI agents do not read product pages like humans. They extract structured data, weigh it against user criteria and make a decision in milliseconds. Vague marketing texts are ignored; specifications are compared.

Research by Semrush showed that a large portion of ChatGPT’s product recommendations overlaps with Google Shopping results. This has direct implications: your Google Shopping feed is now also your AI visibility feed. Those who do not have their feed in order will be missed in both channels.

Three factors determine whether an AI agent recommends you.

Data quality: specific, factual product descriptions with measurable properties. “300 GSM organic cotton, EU Ecolabel certified” beats “premium quality”.

Structured data: JSON-LD schemas for Product, Offer, AggregateRating and MerchantReturnPolicy tell AI systems exactly what you offer, at what price and under what conditions.

Reputation signals: AI agents weigh reviews from multiple sources. A low or missing review score means the agent does not even suggest you, regardless of price or quality.

What are the 5 steps to make your webshop AI-proof today?

This is what you as a Belgian webshop owner can concretely do, without overhauling your entire architecture.

1. Implement structured data Add JSON-LD schemas for Product, Offer, AggregateRating and MerchantReturnPolicy. These are the fields AI agents consult first. On Shopify this can be done via apps such as Schema Plus or via adjustments in your theme. Read more about structured data and Google to understand which schemas take priority. SEO and GEO share the same data foundations: what is good for Google is good for AI agents.

2. Optimise your Google Shopping feed Ensure your Shopping feed is up to date, contains accurate titles with product specifications and includes GTIN/EAN codes. What is here is also read by AI agents. This is not an extra task; it is the same feed you should already be optimising for your performance marketing campaigns.

3. Rewrite product descriptions factually Replace vague qualifications with measurable specifications. Not “superior high-quality leather” but “full-grain cowhide, 1.8 mm thickness, tanned without chrome salt.” AI agents can compare that; marketing language cannot.

4. Activate Shopify Agentic Storefronts If you are on Shopify: go to your Admin, find Agentic Storefronts via the Winter ‘26 Edition updates and activate it. It takes minutes and automatically distributes your products to ChatGPT and Perplexity. More about the possibilities of Shopify for Belgian merchants. Not yet on Shopify? Check out our startup and migration page.

5. Structure FAQ, shipping policy and returns policy to be machine-readable AI agents check returns policy and shipping costs before recommending a product. Make sure that information is clear, complete and structured on your site, not buried in a PDF or image. This seamlessly connects to your AI chatbot for consistent customer service, and to a solid maintenance and support contract to keep your Shopify environment up to date.

“Agentic AI could account for approximately 25% of American e-commerce revenue by 2030, fundamentally changing how consumers discover and purchase products online.”

— Bain & Company, e-commerce and AI agents research report 2025

What does a Belgian SME not yet need to do?

The hype around agentic commerce gives the impression that every webshop must overhaul its entire architecture tomorrow. That is not the case.

Building your own AI agents: platforms such as Shopify, Mollie and Stripe are building the transaction infrastructure. You supply the data foundations. A custom AI agent for purchases is an enterprise solution that most Belgian SMEs do not yet need.

Developing MCP servers yourself: if you are on Shopify, you already have one. Shopify automatically generates an MCP endpoint for every store via the Winter ‘26 API updates.

Adding an llms.txt file: this protocol has limited adoption and no official support from major LLM providers. Google’s John Mueller confirmed that AI services do not in practice consult this file. Direct your first attention to structured data.

For those who want to know how marketing automation connects to this evolution: the patterns are comparable. Also compare how GEO evolved relative to SEO: the foundations are the same, the application shifts gradually. Those who have the basics in order follow the evolution effortlessly.

When is agentic commerce coming to Europe and Belgium?

The current platforms are all active in the US. The European rollout is delayed for concrete reasons: PSD3 regulation, Strong Customer Authentication requirements and the fragmented payments market with Bancontact, iDEAL and SOFORT.

Mollie, active in the Benelux, confirms in their agentic commerce FAQ that the payment infrastructure for Europe is in active development and will go live for selected merchants in 2026.

“The infrastructure for agentic payments is live in the US and is actively being built out for European markets. PSD3 compliance and local payment methods such as Bancontact and iDEAL are our priority for the European rollout.”

Mollie, Agentic Commerce & European Payments FAQ Source: mollie.com/growth/agentic-commerce-european-payments-faq

The realistic timeline for Belgian merchants: 12 to 24 months for a broad rollout of autonomous AI purchases. But the preparation time is now. Those who wait until it goes live start a year too late and miss the first-mover advantage in AI search citations.

Also check our analysis of zero-click and its importance for Belgian webshops, because agentic commerce significantly accelerates that trend.

“In agentic commerce, the winner is not the brand with the biggest advertising budget or the most beautiful landing page. It is the merchant with the most accurate, structured and reliable product data — because that is what AI agents can actually assess.”

— Kevin Indig, Growth Memo

Why is GEO optimisation the bridge to agentic commerce?

The technical foundation for agentic commerce is the same as that for GEO optimisation: structured data, machine-readable content, factual product information and strong reputation signals. Those who implement GEO correctly automatically lay the groundwork for agentic commerce.

Concretely: the structured data that an AI search engine uses to cite you in an answer is exactly the same data that an AI agent needs to recommend your product. One investment, two direct returns.

At ClickForest we combine GEO strategies with online marketing and e-commerce optimisation. We help Shopify merchants structure their product data and content so that both traditional search engines and AI platforms correctly understand and recommend them. More about our approach via AI for growth.

Ready to make your webshop findable for AI agents?

We check your structured data, Shopping feed and GEO optimisation and give you a concrete action plan. Request a website audit or schedule a video call, no obligations, direct answer from Frederiek.