Shopify Agentic Commerce: What It Is, How It Works, and Where Rep AI Fits Into the Equation

Quick Summary

This guide explains what Shopify's agentic commerce protocol is, how the Universal Commerce Protocol works, and the growth opportunity it creates. We also cover the gap it leaves on your storefront and how Rep AI's on-site AI sales agent complements Shopify's infrastructure to drive conversion and AOV.

AI Shopping Is Here. Is Your Storefront Ready?

AI-driven traffic to Shopify stores has surged 7x over the last year. Orders attributed to AI-powered search are up 11x. Morgan Stanley estimates AI shopping agents could capture $190 billion to $385 billion of US eCommerce spending by 2030.

Shopify is building the infrastructure to power this shift through its Universal Commerce Protocol. But external discovery is only half the equation. The traffic that lands on your storefront still needs to convert. This guide breaks down what agentic commerce means, where Shopify's protocol ends, and what you need to close the gap.

Why Listen to Us

Rep AI built the first Agentic Commerce Operating System for Shopify, designed specifically to increase conversion, AOV, and revenue through conversational AI. We work with 500+ brands and have served over 100 million visitors, giving us hands-on experience across diverse eCommerce scenarios. 

Our behavioral engine is trained on 160 million+ sessions, giving us deep insight into what actually converts shoppers. This data-driven perspective guarantees that every recommendation, feature, and strategy we share is grounded in real-world results. It helps brands turn traffic into revenue, reduce support tickets, and make wise decisions faster.

What Is Shopify Agentic Commerce?

Shopify Agentic Commerce is Shopify’s approach to enabling AI-driven shopping experiences using Shopify’s native commerce infrastructure. It allows AI agents to surface Shopify products inside AI conversations and, on supported platforms, help complete purchases without sending shoppers to a traditional storefront.

In this model, AI agents do more than answer questions. They can help shoppers discover products, recommend items, and initiate commerce actions using Shopify data and APIs.

Shopify enables this through Agentic Storefronts, which merchants configure once in their Shopify admin. This setup makes product data and brand context available to supported AI shopping surfaces without custom integrations for discovery.

When a shopper asks an AI agent for product recommendations, the agent can reference Shopify catalog data such as pricing, availability, and variants. If the AI platform supports in-chat checkout, the shopper can complete the purchase and the order appears in Shopify with proper attribution.

Merchants remain the seller of record. They own the customer relationship, manage fulfillment, and handle post-purchase support just as they do for storefront orders.

How Shopify Agentic Commerce Works: The Universal Commerce Protocol

The Universal Commerce Protocol, or UCP, is an open standard co-developed by Shopify and Google to help AI agents interact with commerce systems using a shared language. It aims to reduce custom integrations between AI platforms, merchants, and payment providers. Over 20 major retailers like Target, Walmart, and Etsy have fully endorsed it

UCP defines how agents can discover products, request commerce actions, and exchange credentials across systems. It focuses on interoperability rather than owning the transaction stack.

The protocol supports three core capabilities. 

• Discovery: AI agents can instantly search thousands of merchant catalogs to find products matching shopper queries.
• Checkout: UCP supports discount codes, loyalty credentials, subscription billing, bundling, and custom terms like "final sale" or "pre-order timing" right inside the conversation.
• Orders: Shoppers can check fulfillment status, manage returns, and handle order issues without leaving their AI assistant.

The protocol works with existing infrastructure. It's compatible with Agent2Agent (A2A), Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), and Model Context Protocol (MCP), meaning AI platforms can integrate without rebuilding their commerce stack.

Eligibility, Setup, and Costs

Shopify’s Agentic Storefronts are currently in early access with limited availability.

Requirements

• Store must be based in the United States (global expansion planned)
• Shopify Payments must be enabled
• Products must be eligible for Shopify Catalog inclusion
• Merchants must accept the Agentic Storefronts Supplemental Terms of Service

Currently unsupported features include subscriptions product bundles, custom checkout blocks, and Google Analytics pixels. Customers using these features are redirected to your online store.

Setup

For most eligible Shopify merchants, agentic storefronts are active by default and you don’t need to do anything for your products to be discoverable. However, to enable direct in-chat purchases, you’ll need to configure your settings in the Shopify admin.

• Go to Settings > Sales Channels in your Shopify admin. You'll see an "Agentic Storefronts" section listing available AI platforms.
• Choose which platforms you want to sell on (ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Microsoft Copilot, etc.) 
• By default, all eligible products are included. You can unpublish specific products from agentic storefronts using the standard sales channel publishing controls.
• Install Shopify's Knowledge Base App to upload your brand guidelines, FAQs, return policies, and tone of voice instructions.
• If your store uses custom data structures (metafields, tag prefixes, delimiters in product titles), configure Catalog Mapping to ensure products are categorized and displayed correctly across AI surfaces.

Platform Fees 

Agentic commerce introduces additional costs beyond standard Shopify fees:

• ChatGPT: 4% per transaction (30-day free trial for new merchants). The fee is calculated on the total order amount and refunded orders receive a proportional fee refund.
• Google AI Mode / Microsoft Copilot: No additional platform fees currently. This may change as these integrations mature

For low-margin products, monitor AI channel profitability closely since fees are auto-collected from payouts.

The Growth Opportunity

The numbers point to a fundamental shift in shopping behavior:

• 7x increase in AI-driven traffic to Shopify stores since January 2025
• 11x increase in orders attributed to AI-powered search
• 64% of shoppers say they'll use AI during the holiday shopping season
• $190B–$385B of US ecommerce spending could flow through AI agents by 2030

Shopify President Harley Finkelstein called this "the biggest shift in technology since the internet." The company is positioning itself as the infrastructure layer for this new era, the same way it became the backbone for direct-to-consumer commerce over the past decade.

Where Shopify’s Infrastructure Ends

The growth opportunity is real. But at the same time, we must also acknowledge the vast majority of your traffic still prefers to visit your online store before making a purchase. This is especially true for high-ticket items. Agents are efficient, but they lack trust among the masses like any new tech. 

Additionally, a lot of people come to your Shopify storefront through traditional channels. Paid search, social ads, organic SEO, and email campaigns still drive the bulk of your visitors.

While Shopify's agentic commerce infrastructure solves external discovery and gets your products found inside AI conversations happening elsewhere, it doesn’t cater to the above requirements.

What it doesn't do:

• Put an AI sales agent on your Shopify storefront
• Proactively engage visitors about to leave
• Increase conversion rate or AOV for traffic that lands on your store
• Surface insights about why visitors browse without buying

Think about it this way: Shopify's UCP helps shoppers find you through ChatGPT or Gemini. But what happens when those shoppers click through to your site? What about the traffic from your Facebook ads, email campaigns, or organic search rankings?

That traffic lands on your storefront. And most of it leaves without buying.

Traditional chatbots sit passively in the corner, waiting for someone to click. Most shoppers never engage and marketing automation fires after they have already left. Analytics also shows you what happened, but not why visitors hesitated.

External discovery and on-site conversion are two halves of the same equation. Shopify handles the first. You need something else for the second.

What an On-Site AI Sales Agent Does Differently

An AI sales agent operates on fundamentally different principles than the chatbots most brands have tried. Here’s what it does:

Proactive Behavioral Engagement

Instead of waiting, the AI sales agent  identifies visitors showing signs of disengagement, such as hesitation, exit intent, or scroll patterns suggesting confusion. Then, it approaches at the optimal moment, initiating a conversation when it detects a struggling shopper.

For instance, Rep AI's Rescue Algorithm predicts when a shopper is about to leave with 92% accuracy. It engages at precisely the right moment, not so early that it's annoying, not so late that the shopper has already bounced. This timing is key for optimal conversion rates.

Targets the Right Visitors

Not everyone needs assistance. High-intent buyers know what they want, and interrupting them with a chat pop-up is annoying. The goal is to identify visitors who are stuck, confused, and about to leave, not engaging everyone indiscriminately.

This selective approach is why behavioral AI outperforms traditional chatbots. You’re not adding friction for confident buyers. You’re removing it for the hesitant ones.

Sales-First, Not Support-First

Most chatbots optimize for ticket deflection. They’re built by help desk companies who added AI features to their existing support products.

But an AI sales agent optimizes for revenue. It personalizes product recommendations based on conversation context, handles pre-sale objections around sizing and shipping, guides shoppers toward checkout, and enables add-to-cart directly in chat. 

Support still happens. But it's a byproduct of a larger commerce experience, not the primary function.

Surfaces Intelligence You Don't Have

Because the AI has real conversations with shoppers, it captures signals your analytics miss. Why did that visitor leave without buying? What question did your product page fail to answer? Where does your funnel actually break?

This intelligence feeds back into your merchandising, content, and customer experience strategy. Every conversation becomes data you can act on.

Rep AI: The AI Sales Agent for Shopify Storefronts

Rep AI is an Agentic Commerce Operating System built to increase conversion rate and AOV on your Shopify storefront. While Shopify handles external AI discovery, Rep AI handles on-site conversion by integrating with Shopify's infrastructure.

How It Complements Shopify’s Stack

Behavioral AI That Knows When to Engage

Rep AI connects directly to your Shopify catalog and learns every product. Once connected, it scans your catalog every 10 seconds so recommendations stay current with inventory and pricing changes.

The behavioral engine monitors visitor activity in real time. When it detects hesitation, confusion, or exit intent, it initiates conversation naturally. Shoppers can ask for what they want in plain language, such as "show me bras in size 34D,"and the AI delivers relevant results instantly.

Sales Capabilities That Drive Revenue

Rep AI was built to drive conversions, and the sales capabilities reflect that focus:

• Product discovery: Shoppers describe what they want, and the AI finds it. No more browsing through collections hoping to stumble on the right item.
• Recommendations: The AI suggests complementary products based on what's in the cart or what the shopper has viewed. This drives AOV without feeling pushy.
• Objection handling: Questions about sizing, shipping, returns, and materials get answered instantly. These pre-sale concerns kill conversions when left unanswered.
• In-chat actions: Add to cart, navigate to checkout, and apply discount codes, all without leaving the conversation. Every click you remove increases the likelihood of purchase.

Support That Doesn't Require Your Team

Support requests still come through. Rep AI automatically handles order tracking, return inquiries, and shipping questions, creating tickets in your helpdesk only when human intervention is actually needed.

The AI connects to Gorgias, Zendesk, or Richpanel. When it can't resolve an issue, the handoff is seamless. The human agent sees the full conversation history and can pick up without the shopper repeating themselves.

Integrations That Fit Your Stack

Rep AI integrates with the platforms Shopify brands already use:

• Email/SMS: Klaviyo, Attentive, Postscript, Omnisend, Mailchimp
• Helpdesk: Gorgias, Zendesk, Richpanel
• Reviews: Yotpo
• Returns: Loop
• Mobile: Tapcart

Setup takes about 10 minutes for basic configuration. Your catalog syncs automatically. For stores with custom rules or complex products, the AI can be trained conversationally over time, with no coding required.

Capture the Full Opportunity

Shopify has built the infrastructure for external AI discovery. But the brands that win in agentic commerce will understand both sides of the equation. They'll be discoverable in AI conversations happening across ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot, and they'll have on-site intelligence that converts traffic once it lands. The discovery infrastructure is here, and Shopify UCP is live. The question is whether you have the on-site AI to capture the opportunity. 

Rep AI can help Shopify brands turn traffic into sales by engaging high-intent visitors with conversational AI that understands behavior and guides them to the right products. Shoppers can browse visually, ask questions, and add items to the cart in chat while support is handled automatically. Furthermore, the AI also provides insights into why visitors leave and what your site is missing, helping teams improve revenue, not just automate support.

See how Rep AI works with your actual product catalog. Start your free 30-day trial today, and unlock measurable revenue impact in weeks, not months.