When I launched my Amazon agency Bobsled back in 2015, I heard plenty of dismissals: CEOs calling Amazon ads a fad, and prestige brands scoffing at their products sharing carts with toilet paper. Fast forward to today, and I’m seeing another inflection point, one that could rattle the very foundations of the $60 billion retail media ecosystem — agentic shopping.

In this episode, I share a snippet from my recent appearance on Retailgentech with Scot Wingo. We dive into why AI-powered shopping agents could disrupt retailer websites, ad margins, and data ownership models. We explore the economics of onsite, offsite, and in-store retail media, and what happens when shopper journeys bypass retail platforms altogether.

This episode is sponsored by Connected Commerce at Acosta Group

Timeline

[0:15] – Reflecting on the early Amazon ad skeptics, and how history may repeat with AI.
[1:30] – What happens when consumers stop browsing retailer sites and start shopping with AI agents?
[2:19] – Breaking down the profit margins behind onsite, offsite, and in-store retail media.
[4:15] – The threat to offsite media when retailers lose visibility into consumer journeys.
[6:03] – Scot Wingo explains how agentic orders could work, minus the retailer's usual data visibility.
[8:28] – The biggest risk: when multiple parties have the same transaction data, the value of that data drops.
[9:13] – A teaser for Part 2 (dropping this Monday August 11) in which we discuss to how prepare for the agentic shopping future.

Links & Resources

What will ads inside AI look like? PART 1

Retail Media Breakfast Club

What will ads inside AI look like? PART 1