There’s a fundamental difference between adding AI to today’s ecommerce workflows and re-architecting commerce for an agent-driven world.

In this episode, we start with Deloitte’s Agentic Commerce paper and quickly fan out into what’s changed since its release. If you’re trying to separate signal from noise in the rush toward AI-powered shopping, this conversation grounds Agentic Commerce in real systems, real economics, and real decisions retailers need to make now.

Highlights 

• Why Agentic Commerce is a paradigm shift, not a bundle of AI features
• The evolution from SEO → GEO → ACO, and why GEO is just a waypoint
• The two biggest misconceptions Deloitte is hearing from retailers and brands
• Why structured product + data catalogs are the no-regret investment
• The real question execs keep asking: Where do we start? (and what’s measurable)
• The “Acommerce ecosystem”: orchestrators + specialized “nano agents”
• Trust, security, returns, customer service, and why this can’t be a side project
• Forecasts for how big agentic commerce gets, and why the point is: it moves the needle

Agentic commerce is becoming a new channel with new unit economics, and the brands and retailers that get their product truth, governance, and trust foundations right now will be the ones that win when agents become the default interface.

Timestamps:
01:54 — Meet Deloitte

02:10 — The paper: Agentic Commerce: Redefining Retail Economics

03:55 — ACO + the SEO/GEO conversation

04:11 — VJ’s background: SAP → Deloitte, retail AI intersection

05:50 — Brian’s background: supply chain → strategy → consulting

07:49 — “Traditional AI” vs GenAI in retail

09:38 — Why Deloitte wrote the paper (and why GEO isn’t the endpoint)

11:49 — Deloitte’s definition: why it’s a journey, not a switch

13:33 — NRF vibe check + what’s changed since December

14:27 — Common misconceptions (and what leaders miss end-to-end)

16:14 — The questions execs are asking: where to start + ROI

18:03 — Why this could be a golden age of storytelling + loyalty

21:06 — The no-regret starting point: catalogs + structured data

21:34 — Org design + governance + democratizing AI usage

23:15 — CFO-ready thinking: measuring value by channel

26:12 — Zero-click pressure + “what are you doing about it?”

28:31 — Balanced portfolio: fast wins vs complex upside

30:32 — The core distinction, again: AI add-ons vs agentic redesign

31:18 — Do we still need websites? (channels vs replacement)

33:17 — Deloitte’s role: advise, build, operate

37:29 — “Acommerce” + ecosystems of nano agents

41:31 — Protocols + UCP + what changes next

42:50 — Meta, OpenAI, Google: where this is headed

46:58 — 2030 forecasts: conservative vs aggressive cases

50:02 — Where to follow Saurabh's podcast: The Retail Tales

👉 Connect with Saurabh: https://www.linkedin.com/in/svijayvergia/
👉 Connect with Brian: https://www.linkedin.com/in/briancmccarthy/
👉 Learn more about Deloitte: https://www.deloitte.com/us/en.html

Check out the materials we discuss:
🔗 Agentic Commerce: Redefining Retail Economic

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