As retailers push into agentic commerce, success may hinge less on the technology itself and more on how quickly consumers are willing to change their habits.

Take OpenAI’s short-lived Instant checkout experiment. It wasn’t really a failure of technology, but a “failure of sequence, and, more precisely, a failure to understand the difference between what technology can do and what consumers are ready for it to do,” said Andy Szanger, Director of Strategy at CDW, during a recent Retail Brew webinar.

That disconnect between what AI can do and what consumers are ready to embrace is defining the current phase of agentic commerce. While more than half (58%) of consumers say they’re open to placing orders through an AI assistant, just 6% have actually done so, according to Radial.

As a result, the next phase may be less about replacing the shopping journey altogether and more about restructuring it, letting AI handle the background work while humans, or human-like experiences, take the lead in the moments that matter.

Where AI meets luxury

“[Luxury and technology] operate in extremely, almost polar opposite frameworks,” said Kate Davidson Hudson, CEO of luxury fashion platform Vêtir. “Fashion, especially in the luxury sector, values the storytelling and emotionality around products, whereas tech is optimized for speed and kind of empirical metrics at scale.”

Viewed from another angle, though, AI has the potential to elevate the luxury shopping experience rather than dilute it.

“AI, especially agentic AI, all it does is elevate the human experience, because it takes care of all the background work,” Hudson said.

At Vêtir, that philosophy takes shape through AI agents designed to function as digital stylists, managing the shopping journey end to end. Agents can manage wardrobes, resurface forgotten items, and guide resale decisions, shifting the experience from reactive purchasing to proactive curation.

Powering this system is a rich layer of post-purchase data.

“There's so much rich, valuable data in what happens post purchase,” she said, emphasizing the importance of understanding how products are actually used, styled, and integrated into daily life.

When the human touch matters most

Even as agents take on more responsibility, the role of humans is not shrinking in the way some expected. If anything, it is becoming more deliberate.

“The human interaction is not overhead. It's the product,” Szanger said.

That distinction matters most in high-stakes moments. Routine, repeat purchases can be automated, but first-time buyers or customers dealing with issues still need people in the loop.

“When I think about things like a first time consumer, a luxury purchase, or a long-time customer who has a problem with a product, I want to have that human engagement there,” said Szanger.

For retailers, that’s where the real focus should lie.

“What are the processes in my business that can afford and are optimized to be handed over to an agent, and where are the stakes high enough that I want to keep that associate involved? It's not a one-size-fits-all. It's really about the key moments in that customer journey for your brand,” said Szanger.

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