Designing for the human and the agent: the future of the customer in agentic commerce

As AI-powered agents and autonomous shopping tools become part of everyday life, the balance of decision-making power is shifting – from consumers themselves to the technologies acting on their behalf. At the last year’s Bentonville Retail Innovation Forum, dunnhumby ventures convened a panel of retail leaders, data scientists, and behavioural experts to explore what customer-centricity means in this new era of agentic commerce.

Here are five key themes that emerged from the discussion:

1. Customer-centricity is evolving beyond personalisation

“As AI becomes more prevalent, it’s not just humans making decisions, but machines making decisions. What does that look like?”

Personalisation is no longer the finish line, it is the foundation. As AI agents increasingly guide consumer choices, brands and retailers must shift from reactive targeting to predictive engagement. This means understanding not just who the customer is, but what they are likely to need next, and how their decisions are being shaped by digital proxies.

Designing experiences that cater to both the individual customer and AI agents is essential in today’s agentic commerce landscape. Structuring product content and messaging in ways that AI tools can interpret, and ensuring recommendations are contextually relevant across platforms, are now essential strategies.

What it means for retailers and brands: Retailers should rethink personalisation as a dynamic, predictive process rather than a static profile. Success will depend on designing experiences that serve both the human and the agent, including structuring product content and messaging in ways that AI tools can interpret. Investing in AI-ready content and cross-channel consistency will be key.

2. Real-world behaviour and contextual signals are critical

“When it comes to the physical world… it’s much trickier. Traditional methods like interviews and surveys are based on recall or claims.”

Understanding customers in context, especially in the physical world, remains a challenge. Traditional methods like surveys and interviews often fall short due to recall bias and lack of immediacy. Emerging technologies such as smart sensors, in-home usage tracking, and real-time feedback mechanisms are helping brands decode behaviour with greater precision.

These tools allow for passive data collection and contextual engagement, enabling brands to interact with consumers at moments of high relevance. Whether prompting feedback during product use or tailoring messaging based on observed habits, the ability to capture and act on real-world signals is becoming a key differentiator.

What it means for retailers and brands: To stay relevant, brands must move beyond purchase data and embrace real-world usage signals. This includes investing in technologies that capture in-home behaviour, enabling contextual engagement, and using real-time feedback to inform product development and marketing. Retailers should explore partnerships with platforms that offer passive data collection and behavioural tracking.

3. Behavioural intelligence enables scalable personalisation

“Linguistic demographics enable us to look at any text and determine the demographics and emotional intensity behind it. Same product, different positioning – strengthening for boomers, brightening for millennials, freshening for Gen Z.”

Advancements in behavioural analytics are allowing brands to move beyond demographic segmentation and toward psychographic and linguistic profiling. By analysing organic consumer language, such as product reviews, social media posts, and search queries, retailers can uncover emotional drivers and tailor messaging accordingly.

This approach supports scalable personalisation, where the same product can be positioned differently for various segments based on values, preferences, and regional nuances. The result is more resonant campaigns, higher conversion rates, and deeper customer engagement.

What it means for retailers and brands: Retailers should leverage behavioural and linguistic analytics to personalise at scale. This means moving beyond age and income brackets to understand how different segments speak, feel, and make decisions. AI tools that analyse organic consumer language can help tailor messaging, product positioning, and even innovation pipelines to match evolving preferences.

4. Trust and emotional connection still matter

“You have to really clearly define your purpose… what problem are you solving for consumers?”

Even as AI mediates more of the shopping journey, emotional connection remains essential. Consumers want to feel understood, not just targeted. Brands must clearly define their purpose, show up consistently across channels, and build relationships that extend beyond transactions.

Authenticity in messaging, alignment across media platforms, and thoughtful influencer partnerships were highlighted as key strategies. Panellists also discussed the importance of maintaining brand identity in AI-driven environments, where search algorithms and digital agents increasingly shape visibility and relevance.

What it means for retailers and brands: In an AI-mediated world, emotional connection is a competitive advantage. Brands must define their purpose, maintain consistent tone and identity across channels, and choose influencer partnerships that feel authentic. Retailers should prioritise trust-building strategies and ensure that their messaging aligns with consumer values and expectations.

5. Unified data and cross-retailer collaboration are imperative

“If you don’t clean and integrate data into one view of the consumer, you’re missing opportunity.”

Fragmented data continues to be a major barrier to customer-centricity. To deliver seamless experiences, retailers and brands must resolve identities across platforms and integrate data from multiple sources. This includes purchase data, usage data, behavioural signals, and contextual attributes.

Retailers and brands need clean, connected data environments that support descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics. Greater collaboration between retailers, brands, and technology providers can support building shared data ecosystems that enable unified customer views and smarter decision-making.

What it means for retailers and brands: Fragmented data limits insight and action. Retailers must invest in identity resolution, data orchestration, and omni-analytics platforms that unify customer views across channels and partners. Collaboration between retailers and brands is essential to build shared data ecosystems that support real-time decision-making and personalised engagement.

The future for the customer

As AI agents reshape the way consumers discover and decide, staying customer-centric requires more than personalisation. Retailers and brands must embrace real-world behaviour tracking, behavioural intelligence, and unified data strategies to remain relevant. Success will depend on designing experiences that serve both humans and their digital proxies, while maintaining trust, emotional connection, and adaptability across channels.

Thank you to our panellists and moderator for sharing their insights and expertise:

• Dmitriy Pavlov, Founder & CEO, Stitched Insights
• Daniel Palmer, SVP Data Science, Engine
• Nihal Advani, Founder & CEO, QualSights
• Rachel McReickel, Sales Director, Global CPG
• Scott Benedict, Founder & CEO, Benedict Enterprises
• Moderator: Erin Bunner, Product Director - Retail & Insights, dunnhumby

 Innovation insights powered by the dunnhumby Retail Innovation Network

Events like the Retail Innovation Forum showcase the strength of the dunnhumby Retail Innovation Network, the world’s fastest-growing open innovation community for retail technology. With members spanning retailers, brands, startups, and investors, the Network is driving meaningful progress across the industry. We extend our sincere thanks to all participants, speakers, and attendees who made this event a success.

To receive insightful thought leadership and engagement, explore joining the Retail Innovation Network, the fastest growing open innovation networks in retail, for free at dunnhumby.com/ventures and find out more about the next Retail Innovation Forum at dunnhumby.com/retail-innovation-forum.