The e-commerce funnel is collapsing. What took five steps across multiple sessions—discovery, research, comparison, decision, purchase—now happens in a single conversation. An AI agent finds products, compares options, checks inventory, verifies prices, and completes the purchase without the user ever leaving the chat window.
McKinsey projects agentic commerce could capture $3-5 trillion in global retail by 2030. Adobe reports AI-driven traffic to U.S. retail sites grew 805% year-over-year on Black Friday 2025. The question is no longer whether AI will reshape shopping. It’s who will own the new commerce layer.
Tier 3 — Major Retailers:Walmart, Target, Etsy hedging across all platforms—except Amazon.
Tier 4 — Payment Networks: Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Adyen all endorsing UCP and building agent-capable frameworks.
The Bottom Line
The market is consolidating around two protocols, four business models, and one fortress. This isn’t a protocol war—it’s a distribution war. The winner becomes the mandatory intermediary worth trillions.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
