The agentic commerce funnel demands different strategies from different players. Here’s a comprehensive playbook for brands, marketers, and technologists navigating this transition.
Strategic Implications for Brands
Invest in Entity Authority
Your brand’s representation in AI training data, knowledge graphs, and third-party sources determines whether you get recommended:
- Consistent brand messaging across all channels — AI agents synthesize information from multiple sources
- Active reputation management and review solicitation — Reviews are training data for AI recommendations
- Presence in authoritative sources the AI trusts — Industry publications, expert citations, trusted platforms
- Clear differentiation that AI can articulate — If AI can’t explain why you’re different, it can’t recommend you confidently
Build for Recommendation, Not Traffic
The goal isn’t “drive visitors to our site.” It’s “be the option the AI recommends”:
- Understanding how AI agents evaluate and rank options
- Optimizing for the factors that drive AI recommendations
- Accepting that you may never see the “traffic”—just the transactions
Strategic Implications for Marketers
Unify Teams Around Agentic Readiness
The old silos (brand vs. performance, SEO vs. paid, marketing vs. commerce) don’t map to the agentic funnel:
- Integrated teams that own “agentic presence” end-to-end
- Shared metrics focused on recommendation rate and transaction completion
- Combined investment in data infrastructure and brand authority
Rethink Measurement Entirely
| Old Metric | New Metric | What It Measures |
|---|---|---|
| Impressions | AI recommendation rate | How often in top 3? |
| CTR | Agentic conversion rate | When recommended, how often buy? |
| Website traffic | Protocol transaction volume | Purchases via AI checkout |
| Brand awareness | Entity authority score | AI evaluation rating |
Strategic Implications for Technologists
Structured Data Is the New SEO
- Comprehensive schema coverage across all products
- Real-time data feeds with hourly or faster updates
- Protocol integration (ACP, UCP, MCP) for checkout capability
- API infrastructure that AI agents can query directly
Build for Multiple Protocols
- OpenAI’s ACP — Transaction-fee model
- Google’s UCP — CPC model, massive distribution
- Anthropic’s MCP — Open standard
- Protocol-agnostic architecture is the safest bet
The Integration Imperative
The agentic funnel doesn’t have silos. Brands that organize around silos will lose to brands that organize around the single question:
Does the AI recommend us, and can the user buy?
This is part of a comprehensive analysis. Read the full analysis on The Business Engineer.
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