Why agentic AI and unified commerce will define ecommerce in 2026

Agentic AI and unified commerce are set to shape ecommerce in 2026 because the foundations are now in place: consumers are increasingly comfortable using AI tools, and retailers are under pressure to operate seamlessly across channels.

On consumer behavior, Eurostat reports that 32.7% of people aged 16–74 in the EU used generative AI tools in 2025 (for personal, work, or education use). That’s already a meaningful base, and it’s growing quickly.

On the enterprise side, the market is moving from “AI chat” to “AI that executes.” Gartner predicts that up to 40% of enterprise applications will include task-specific AI agents by 2026 (up from under 5% in 2025). That said, unified commerce matters because AI is only as good as the operational data it can access.