We already know that genAI changes everything in commerce tech. But despite our best predictions, we can’t be absolutely sure how it will impact markets in the long run. At Forrester, we continuously analyze the signals we hear from our clients and the market at large to bring you our best recommendations to invest wisely and avoid mistakes amid swift change.
In this volatile space, it’s hard to know whether it’s best to hang back or rush ahead. Some of these initiatives will pave the way to a completely new way of interacting. Others will be learning experiences at best and money pits at worst.
Here is a sneak peek for digital leaders of a few of our predictions for digital commerce in 2026:
- Five major US or European brands will unify “agentic commerce” experiences. As more tech vendors provide their own customer-facing genAI chatbots for brands, brands face having to manage a mess of isolated systems. Imagine that a customer arrives on a brand website, pulls up the chatbot, and says “I need to return two of the items in the order, but I’d like to exchange the green dress for a different dress that’s more formal. Can you give me some recommendations?” In that single request, the customer is asking for customer service processes (a return and an exchange), logistics instructions (where to send the returns), payment processes (refund), and a new product recommendation. Despite the growing options for agentic commerce in owned experiences, none currently brings together assistive or agentic experiences like these into a single experience for customers. A handful of brands will do the work to create unified experiences in the absence of help from vendors.
- One-third of retail marketplace projects will be deserted as answer engines steal traffic. As agentic commerce within answer engines grows, merchants will realize their independent marketplace projects are doomed and will abandon them mid-stream. Only 24% of US online adults have used ChatGPT, per Forrester’s Consumer Benchmark Survey, 2025. Despite that relatively low rate of current adoption, agentic commerce in non-owned environments (such as answer engines like ChatGPT) is here and certainly will increase in popularity. Because answer engines can pull product from some of the largest marketplaces (e.g., Etsy) and platforms (e.g., Shopify), they offer assortments that smaller, independent marketplaces can’t match on their own. Merchants will have to figure out how to co-exist with this new shopping experience – likely including allocating the spend freed up by abandoning marketplace projects to earn featured positions as the answer engines increase the sources from which they pull product for display to customers.
- Twenty percent of B2B sellers will be forced to engage in agent-led quote negotiations. A third iteration of agentic commerce, agent-to-agent B2B commerce, will show up on the radar of digital B2B businesses in the next year. In true agentic fashion, these agents will act autonomously, but within specified guardrails. Buyer-bots will negotiate prices and terms, establish replenishment cadence, and confirm compliance. In turn, sellers’ bots will ensure prices and terms remain tenable, and will plan for inventory availability for negotiated orders. True autonomy and broad use are still in the distance, but from overseeing public procurement to delegating low-value procurement tasks we’ll see more widespread use of agents in this context. This shift will force vendors to ready their own agents to respond.
Forrester clients can now read our full report and watch our webinar on Predictions 2026: Digital Commerce (coming October 29) to get more detail about each of these predictions. Those resources will also dive into the two digital commerce predictions that we didn’t tease here. Set up a Forrester guidance session with us to discuss these predictions or plan your 2026 digital commerce strategy.
