Samjong KPMG: "AI Agents Emerging as Main Players in Shopping... Contract Law and Regulatory Improvements Needed"

"Agentic Commerce: Leading the Autonomous Shopping Era"
Report Published

Recently, there has been an opinion that the emergence of "agentic commerce," in which artificial intelligence (AI) agents understand users' intentions and conditions to handle the entire shopping process, is shifting the main agents of purchase decision-making.

On February 3, Samjong KPMG published a report titled "Agentic Commerce: Leading the Autonomous Shopping Era," analyzing that the agentic commerce ecosystem is subdivided into AI agent platforms, standards and protocols, payment, trust and authentication infrastructure, and commerce and products. The report noted that competition for dominance among global companies in each area is intensifying.

Agentic commerce refers to a commerce structure in which AI agents understand users' intentions and constraints, and not only search, compare, and recommend products, but also execute transactions. This signals a shift to a structure in which AI functions as the actual purchasing agent.

The report identified AI agent platforms as the core element of the agentic commerce ecosystem. When users shop through AI agents, the entire decision-making process—including product search path selection, price comparison, and brand exposure—takes place within the agent itself.

For the spread of agentic commerce, protocols that enable smooth integration among AI agents, online shopping malls, and payment companies are essential. Samjong KPMG explained that defining standards to connect AI agents, shopping malls, and payment networks—and establishing those standards as the common language for global commerce connectivity—will be a decisive factor in the competition for leadership in the agentic commerce ecosystem.

Payment, trust, and authentication infrastructure were also highlighted as critical challenges. Since the structure in which AI agents execute payments on behalf of users is directly linked to issues of accountability, fraud risk, dark patterns, and overspending, building a payment infrastructure that ensures stability and reliability is key.

The commerce and product domain refers to APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and data interfaces that enable AI agents to understand product data, select options, check inventory, and execute orders and deliveries. Accordingly, the report analyzed that commerce companies need to shift their strategies from search optimization to building data environments that AI agents can select and utilize.

In particular, major global tech companies such as OpenAI, Google, Amazon, and Walmart are accelerating strategies to use AI agents as consumer interfaces or to preempt standards for payments and interoperability.

The report also raised technical, ethical, and legal risks in the process of agentic commerce expansion. The reliability of AI agents' decision-making, data bias, infringement on consumer autonomy, and unclear accountability were cited as challenges that require future regulatory improvements and social consensus. The report suggested that social discussions on contract law and consumer protection systems suitable for the agentic commerce environment need to be expanded.

Korea is considered to have a favorable environment for agentic commerce, given its high level of digital infrastructure and widespread simple payment ecosystem. However, the report noted that the pace of agentic commerce implementation in the Korean market remains limited compared to global big tech, making it important for companies to proactively develop response strategies.

Hongmin Park, Executive Director at Samjong KPMG, stated, "Agentic commerce is a new commerce paradigm in which AI agents act as the actual purchasing agents, going beyond the traditional e-commerce structure where consumers directly search for and select products. Designing product data from the perspective of AI agents and building the supporting infrastructure will be key elements for securing future corporate competitiveness."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.