PwC’s James Lewis on the Retail Pivot to Agentic AI

The shift toward agentic commerce represents a fundamental change in how brands reach consumers. Retailers have spent years optimizing for traditional search engines and apps, but the new battleground is AI interpretation. When a customer uses a Large Language Model to navigate a purchase, the system makes the final call on brand selection, trade-offs, and customer routing. This transformation moves discoverability from a marketing task to a board-level growth priority.

Visibility, recommendation ranking, and positive sentiment within AI responses have become the new metrics of success. Lewis emphasizes that AI rewards technical logic—price, availability, and fulfillment proof—yet consumers still demand emotional connection. Brands that fail to balance these data-driven requirements with the human need for reassurance and identity risk being excluded by the very algorithms that now gatekeep the customer experience.