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E-commerce continues to eat up ever-increasing share of the U.S. retail market: Americans bought more than $3.3 billion of items online every day in the second quarter of last year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Online retails share of spending is increasing with every year that passes. Traditionally, thats meant typing a term or phrase into a search bar and clicking through to a shopping basket. But the AI revolution is poised to swamp online retail, too, with agentic AI set to shop on behalf of customers. The e-commerce sector is rapidly preparing for whats about to comean influx of non-human customers acting on behalf of humans. We avoid hype around technology, but AI agentic shopping could bring huge changes to retail if it is widely adopted, says Clare Walsh, director of education at the Institute of Analytics, a professional body for data analytics experts. The usually staid professional organization is full-throated in its belief that agentic AI shopping could change society. AI-empowered agentic shoppersrobots that learn your shopping needs and preferences and then shop for youhave the potential to be as disruptive for e-commerce as moving bricks and mortar retail online, Walsh says. Those within the retail sector are equally enamored with the concept of AIs arrival. For many years now, eCommerce shopping experiences have consisted of a search bar and a long list of item responses,” Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart, said in a statement announcing his retailers partnership with OpenAI to enable shoppers to buy things directly through ChatGPT with the aid of AI agents. That is about to change. The early data suggests that the reality is matching the hype. AI-driven traffic to retail sites was up 4,700% in the U.S. in the last 12 months, according to Visa. The future isnt coming, its already checking out, says Rubail Birwadker, global head of growth at the credit-card company. Shoppers want AI to help them, according to Birwadker, who points to research that 85% of shoppers say AI agents improved their experience. Separate research, provided to Fast Company by consumer insights company GWI, suggests one in five people are comfortable receiving product recommendations from AI agents. Data from consultancy Kearney indicates 60% of consumers plan to use AI agents to shop in the next year. But ensuring those shopping interactions are secure is trickier. Investment in cleaner data In mid-October, Visa launched its Trusted Agent Protocol (TAP), a framework that would allow AI agents to share and access data that would ensure it can protect against fraud and bot activity. This enables merchants to avoid blocking legitimate transactions and degrading user experience, says Birwadker. For now, TAP applies only to the Visa network. But having established it across their payments system, the massive payment processing giant intends on broadening its use. Enabling agents to safely and securely act on a consumers behalf requires an open ecosystem-wide approach and we will look to extend Trusted Agent Protocol to be compatible with other payment networks and methods in future phases, says Birwadker. The behind-the-scenes transfer of data is where most within the e-commerce sector are rushing to catch up to what they predict is coming with the advent of agentic AI shoppers, says Robin Anderson, head of product management at Tribe Payments, a global paytech company. Were seeing investment in cleaner data, faster checkouts, stronger fraud controls and tighter integrations between systems, he says. This is because an AI agent will make a buying decision in seconds, and if theres frictiona payment fails, a price isnt clearthe sales gone. Anderson believes the arrival of AI shopping agents is going to change e-commerce in quite a fundamental way. An agent-to-agent future The future of shopping is agent-to-agent, agrees Bernadette Nixon, CEO of Algolia, an AI search company. The transaction will happen on the back end, she says. It won’t be a series of blue links. It won’t be a product listing page or a product detail page. It’ll be the transaction. And for that reason, it needs to be seamless. That requires accurate datawhich means public data scraping wont suffice. Just scraping brands or retailers websites doesn’t yield the necessary information to provide a good user experience, she says, because they don’t have accurate pricing. They don’t have accurate inventory. Protocols and the companies behind them are therefore crucial. Visa is far from the only company in the space: online payments company Stripe has its own Agentic Commerce Protocol, an open standard developed in conjunction with OpenAI. It all opens up new opportunities for businesses, says Daniel Ruhman, CEO and co-founder of Brazilian fintech Cumbuca, where early AI agent adoption has run ahead of other countries. You could ask ChatGPT or Claude to find me a handbag, navigate checkout pages, and have your agent handle the payment for you, all with your consent, he says. Thats standard, but agentic AI could go further. Through this, agents can even access your financial data to offer spending insights or advice, he says, what we call agentic open finance, where an AI agent connects to your bank accountwith your permissionto help you understand and manage your money.
Category:
E-Commerce
The Federal Reserves influence on the economy is immense, and often misunderstood. President of the San Francisco Fed Mary Daly gives an exclusive, firsthand look into the central banks daily decision-making, explaining how the Feds policies, at both the regional and national level, ripple through society. From housing prices to immigrations impact on labor, Daly weighs the major factors shaping the U.S. economy. As political and market pressures mount, she reflects on what it means to lead with discipline and data, and what every business leader can learn from the Feds balancing act. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. You run one of the Fed’s 12 regional banks. Your district covers nine Western states, plus Guam, American Samoa, The Mariana Islands. Can you briefly describe the role of your office, and how it relates to the Fed overall? When we hear Fed Chair Jerome Powell announcing a change in interest rates, are you feeding into that? How does all this work? In 1913, when the Fed was formed, there was a decision that we shouldn’t be Washington-centered. That having a presence in Washington with the Board of Governors was important, but having 12 regional reserve banks was equally important so that we could balance out the decisions about the economy across the country, not just in DC. So I lead one of the 12 reserve banks, and those reserve banks do feed into monetary policy. We go to each and every FOMC meeting. We are rotating on votes, but we’re always participating. We’re thinking about how our districts with the lived experience in the economy is and how that matters when we make monetary policy. Monetary policy, the misnomer is it’s all about numbers and markets, but it’s actually about people and lived economy experiences throughout the nation. And so that’s the role of reserve banks, in addition to managing all the operational duties that our teams have, including making sure you have cash when you need it, that your bank can get it and distribute it, making sure the banking system is safe and sound. You’ve said there’s no politics in the Fed. You’re not funded by the federal government, so a shutdown doesn’t affect you, but everybody tries to influence you guys, policymakers, the White House, investors. How do you keep that politics and that pressure out of what you do? The founding of the Federal Reserve 1913 had two elements to it that I think have been durable over time and led the way for central banking across the globe. First was that you had to have a regional voice and the second was that you had to be independent. Because monetary policy is made for the longer run and the decisions we make on where to put cash depots and how to distribute our supervision, that’s all got to be done no matter what administration is in place. So to be durable, especially on the monetary policy part, Congress said let’s make these individuals independent of political persuasion and really thinking about the goals we gave them, and in our case, it’s price stability and full employment, making sure inflation is at 2%, making sure that the economy is not producing lots of unemployment or running so hot, so un-sustainably that inflation should go up. So those are the goals we have. You asked how do you maintain that? How do you not get influenced? Ultimately, who we work for is the American people. Of course, individuals have points of view and we have to consider those because otherwise we’d just be in an echo chamber. But there’s a difference in listening to understand and listening to be persuaded. And when the President tries to remove a Fed Governor, as President Trump has done with Lisa Cook, how distracting is that from It’s really not distracting from the task at hand. Let me just speak about myself. We’re fiduciary stewards of public trust and public responsibilities, and so that’s where I have to attend. Now, I think about not just what’s right in front of me, but ensuring that the American people have a stable and healthy economy over the long term and that the independence of the Fed is preserved not just for the next two months or two weeks, but in fact over the time period, passing that baton to the next generation of leaders. There’s been so much disruption this year in 2025. Are there particular economic indicators that you are most focused on right now? So I think about it as a three-legged stool. So the first component is the public data, the things we get from the government, the things that we get on a regular basis. They’re very, very important, but they’re only one part of our overall data collection. We also get data from the private sector. One of the more critical components of that three-legged stool, which is underappreciated in my opinion, is the time that the reserve bank Presidents in particular spend talking to people, to CEOs, small, medium and large businesses, to community members, civic leaders, unions and workers thinking about not just what were they doing last week, but what are they doing going forward. So right now, I’m very focused on that third leg. And the reason is because when you get to a point where the economy is changing, you have to rely on people who are telling you not what they were doing last week, but what they are doing next week, the next month, the next quarter and ultimately, the next year. And we take that valuable information back to the FOMC meeting. It’s really a robust process and one that I think is critical at these moments. Obviously, the economy is always changing to some extent, but it certainly feels like we’re at a certain kind of inflection point. I know you’ve rated the sentiment of your region as cautiously optimistic, which is a little incongruous with an economy that seems like it’s moving to something we’re not quite sure where it’s going to go. Can you address that disconnect and maybe explain how and where you see the economy moving? Absolutely. So there is quite a bit of uncertainty still, not as high as earlier in the year. The uncertainty really spiked after April 2nd, after Liberation Day. There was just so much uncertainty people didn’t know if they were going to be able to buy their smartphone or if they should buy it right away or if they should wait. Consumers were uncertain. Businesses were uncertain about what’s this going to mean. But at this point, I think those things have settled, and the economy weathered that fairly well. The unemployment rate has gone up a little bit, but not that much. Inflation has gradually come down except in the tariffed sectors. So the only places where you see prices rising are in the ones direcly affected by tariffs. And so people think of that increasingly as a one time price level adjustment and then they’ll be okay. Another thing that I think is important is pick a basket of goods that you like to purchase. Put them in a cart at one of your favorite online retailers and then check what has happened to that basket of goods over time. And what you’re seeing is that while certain items have gone up, other ones are being deeply discounted, so people feel like they’re not losing the kind of ground they lost in the big inflation rise after the pandemic. So I think that gives people some confidence. Recession indicators were quite high and rising earlier in the year and now they’re not really predicting it at all. Consumer sentiment has gone back up after falling, business sentiment has gone back up after falling. So I think that’s where I get the cautious optimism. I was at University of Utah a couple weeks ago and the students are optimistic, and I was really encouraged by that because that generation is like a bellwether. They see that if they learn these new skills, AI, et cetera, they can really make a dent in the economy. So what is the new economy going to look like? The truth is no one knows, but we do know what the elements will be. Certainly, artificial intelligence is making its way. Is it going to be transformative? Is this going to be the new steam engine or electricity? I don’t know. But it is making a contribution to people’s ability to do things faster, better, cheaper and hopefully, will also make a contribution to us doing things that we never imagined were possible.
Category:
E-Commerce
With no end in sight for the political standoff that shuttered the federal government, funding for some key programs is drying up. More than 40 million Americans may not see their food stamps issued next month, as the government shutdown extends into its third full week. Some states have begun warning their residents of the looming threat to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as SNAP. Because Republicans in Washington D.C., failed to pass a federal budget, causing the federal government shutdown, November 2025 SNAP benefits cannot be paid, a notification on Pennsylvanias SNAP info page reads. New York Governor Kathy Hochul demanded that the federal government release funds for SNAP recipients, accusing the Trump administration of deliberately enacting a cruel, senseless and politically motivated punishment that could be avoided. Im outraged that Washington Republicans are deliberately withholding federal funding from millions of New Yorkers who rely on SNAP to put food on the table, Hochul said in a press release, highlighting the three million New Yorkers who stand to be affected by a SNAP shortfall. Ronald Ward, the acting associate administrator of SNAP, warned states in a letter that the program was only funded through October, Axios reported earlier this month. That budget shortfall could leave 42 million people without the benefits they rely on, beginning in November. The letter cautioned states to hold off on distributing funds to SNAP recipients EBT cards until further notice. Blame game The federal shutdown has turned into a heated blame game, even compared to past shutdown standoffs. At the end of September, Democrats refused to support a bill to fund the federal government, seizing on the rare opportunity for political leverage to demand an extension to the tax credits that reduce the cost of health insurance for millions of Americans. Democrats have also called for Republicans to roll back Medicaid cuts from the Big Beautiful Bill that passed in July. Because Republicans cant hit the 60 vote threshold needed to fund the government without Democrats, the shutdown is a stalemate unless one side backs down. The Trump administration has taken extraordinary measures to associate the shutdown with his political opposition, even ordering airports to play a video of Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem blaming Democrats for shutdown-related travel delays. Many airports refused to air the video, citing policies against displaying political content. Noem isnt the only member of Trumps cabinet to spread that messaging. Democrats are putting free healthcare for illegal aliens and their political agenda ahead of food security for American families, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on X, blaming what she referred to as the Democrat shutdown. During the shutdown, some government websites are displaying unusually partisan messages. The USDAs website is currently topped by a banner noting that it wont be updated and blaming the Radical Left Democrat shutdown. President Trump has made it clear he wants to keep the government open and support those who feed, fuel, and clothe the American people, the message reads. Selective funding Most of the federal government is shuttered in light of the political standoff, but the Trump administration is finding ways to fund its own political priorities. Trump ordered the Pentagon and the White House to use all available funds to pay active-duty members of the military, avoiding the political fallout of servicemembers missing paychecks. The White House also opted to fund the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, better known as WIC, using money collected from tariffs. “The Trump White House will not allow impoverished mothers and their babies to go hungry because of the Democrats’ political games, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios. The Democrats are so cruel in their continual votes to shut down the government that they forced the WIC program for the most vulnerable women and children to run out this week.Thankfully, President Trump and the White House have identified a creative solution to transfer https://t.co/tj9Xt7f4yQ— Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) October 7, 2025 Trump went around Congress to allocate those funds, but Congress also has the ability to selectively dole out cash for programs that would otherwise have their funding cut off during a federal shutdown. Still, the food stamps program may not be a priority for Republicans given the partys willingness to slash SNAP dramatically to fund tax cuts and defense spending in the massive bill that passed this summer. The federal shutdowns short-term hit to SNAP could be devastating for Americans who rely on the program to put food on the table, but lasting changes to the program mean fewer Americans will be eligible for food assistance when the spigot of federal funds does eventually open back up.
Category:
E-Commerce
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