Dive Brief:

• A coalition of retailers has formed the Shopper Context Protocol Working Group, dedicated to maintaining relationships with consumers who are using third-party AI tools in their shopping journeys, according to a press release last week. 
• The Retail AI Council, which includes such brands as Adidas, Tesla, Amazon and Apple, is bringing together retailers, technology providers and industry leaders via the working group to collaboratively evolve what it calls the Shopper Context Protocol and establish implementation best practices. The protocol would recognize loyalty, preference or intent during third-party AI shopping experiences.
• “AI isn’t transformational unless it’s grounded in a deep, real-time understanding of what shoppers want and why,” Andy Laudato, co-founder and chair of the Retail AI Council and COO of The Vitamin Shoppe, said in the press release. “The Working Group is a critical step toward building that foundation, prioritizing continuity of a shopper’s experience with a brand while democratizing a retailer’s access to context-rich AI.”

Dive Insight:

As more consumers turn to third-party AI tools in their shopping journeys, who owns that experience?

Retailers are turning to partnerships with AI providers. Walmart is working with OpenAI to let shoppers purchase items from Walmart using ChatGPT, Etsy became a partner for ChatGPT’s instant checkout feature, Target launched an app in beta on ChatGPT, and furniture company Ashley is partnering with Perplexity so shoppers can buy products directly on the AI platform.

Nearly one-third of consumers are now willing to let an AI agent purchase an item, according to a Contentsquare survey released Monday. The survey findings also indicate that consumers are more interested in AI that enhances existing brand experiences. While 38% of consumers say they have no plans to use AI or intentionally avoid it, 43% consumers said they willingly engage with AI when it’s seamlessly embedded into the retailer’s customer journey.

Retailers are banding together to make sure they don’t lose the experiences and relationships with consumers as agentic commerce grows.

Many early AI interactions “begin without recognition of their brand loyalty, order history, shopping intent or preferences,” the coalition said in the press release. Not only can this create friction, it eliminates any sense of relationship the customer may have had with a brand.

The Retail AI Council describes Shopper Context Protocol as “an open, privacy-preserving standard that avoids proprietary lock-in and requires only lightweight implementation.” The goal of the working group is to drive adoption of the protocol, which it says builds off the Agentic Commerce Protocol, co-developed by OpenAI and Stripe.

While the ACP enables product discovery and checkout, it doesn’t recognize loyalty, preference or intent, the Retail AI Council says. The Shopper Context Protocol would provide that context and enable customers to choose where and how their shopping context is shared.

“Without a shared standard protocol for shopper context, many retailers struggle to unlock the power of AI agents, while being effectively blind to conversations shoppers have within tools like ChatGPT,” Matt Howland, chair of the Shopper Context Protocol Working Group, said in a prepared statement. “SCP ensures retailers can participate meaningfully in these moments instead of being cut out of them.”