The Rise of Consumer Agents: AI's New Frontier in Commerce and Customer Trust
TechTarget, Tuesday, August 19th, 2025
Brands now have to design digital experiences for software acting on a customer's behalf.
For years brands optimized digital experiences for humans to navigate; now they also have to design for software acting on people's behalf.
AI-powered consumer agents are moving past chatbots and search assistants to research products, compare prices, schedule appointments, complete purchases, and manage subscriptions with minimal user involvement.
Consumers still control the outcome, but many of the steps between intent and action are becoming automated. That shift changes what a site needs to expose and how trust signals must be structured, since the immediate audience is increasingly an agent rather than a person.