AI Agents Will Handle Most of the Buying Journey by 2027
Source: Featured Blogs - Forrester
Forrester's prediction reflects a concrete shift already underway: AI agents are moving beyond search and recommendation to autonomously navigate product discovery, comparison, and checkout. The traditional click-through funnel is collapsing. Retailers who don't architect their systems for agent-readable product data, transparent pricing, and frictionless handoffs to human reps will lose share to competitors optimizing for algorithmic buyers rather than human ones. The stakes differ from better chatbots: retailers are ceding direct control of customer acquisition to systems they don't own and can't fully control.