Best Buy Declares Agentic AI Leadership, Redefining Product Discovery with OpenAI and Google Partnerships

Best Buy CEO Announces Agentic Commerce Strategy

Best Buy wants to be at the forefront of agentic AI discovery

As agentic commerce matures, we want to serve our customers in new ways, both on and off of platforms, CEO Corie Barry said.

On March 4, 2026, Best Buy CEO Corie Barry announced a full commitment to agentic commerce during the Q4 2026 earnings call. The company explicitly stated its plan to evolve bestbuy.com into a site that is "browsable and discoverable by AI agents," while revealing specific partnership details with OpenAI and Google.

The company's Q4 revenue was $13.8 billion, with comparable sales declining 0.8% year-over-year. However, the earnings release positioned AI and agentic commerce as core growth strategies for fiscal year 2027.

Background and Industry Context

Agentic commerce refers to a model where AI agents search for, compare, and purchase products on behalf of users. Activity in this space has accelerated dramatically since the beginning of 2026.

Google announced the "Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)" at NRF 2026 in January 2026. This open standard enables seamless product discovery through to payment via AI agents, with over 20 partners including Shopify, Target, Walmart, Mastercard, and Visa.

Meanwhile, OpenAI has launched purchasing capabilities within ChatGPT, building an environment where users can discover and buy products directly within the AI assistant. Microsoft has also launched Copilot Checkout, as major tech companies compete to enter the AI commerce space.

Best Buy's decision to declare agentic readiness at this timing reflects its deep product expertise as a consumer electronics retailer and shifting consumer purchasing behavior. According to PYMNTS, the company is pursuing a strategy to drive technology innovation-motivated purchases as consumers become more cautious about big-ticket items.

Best Buy's Specific AI Partnership Strategy

Best Buy's announced initiatives are built on three pillars.

Best Buy is one of the early partners enabling its product catalog to be displayed on ChatGPT. Barry stated during the earnings call that this "creates a path to more natural product discovery." The company is also collaborating with OpenAI as an advertising partner to enhance the shopping experience.

As one of the companies supporting Google's UCP, Best Buy is working on enabling customers to purchase directly within Google Search's AI Mode and the Gemini app. UCP serves as the standard protocol connecting AI agents to merchant backends, and Best Buy is among its initial partners.

Notably, Best Buy has committed not only to partnering with external platforms but also to evolving bestbuy.com itself into a site that AI agents can "browse and discover." This means optimizing site structure and data formats so AI agents can autonomously retrieve product information.

Expert-Identified Risks and Challenges

Julie Geller, Principal Research Director at Info-Tech Research Group, highlighted important risks in an interview with CX Dive.

As AI platform-driven purchasing expands, brands risk being pushed to the "fulfillment" side. If product discovery, comparison, and repeat purchases are completed entirely within AI assistants, retailers may lose control of the customer experience, making it difficult to maintain first-party data collection capabilities and loyalty.

Geller also noted that the transition from AI assistant to brand site becomes a "moment of trust." If a click from ChatGPT leads to inaccurate pricing or out-of-stock items, the purchase intent formed within the AI assistant can collapse instantly.

Implications and Strategies for E-commerce Businesses

Best Buy's move contains important implications for all e-commerce businesses.

For AI agents to correctly identify products, consistent product names, accurate pricing, and real-time inventory information are essential. This is what Geller calls "operational hygiene" — a fundamental requirement for the AI era.

Google's UCP is open source, and businesses using Shopify can adopt it with relative ease. Including OpenAI integration, the move to optimize product catalogs for AI platforms should begin early.

Another lesson from Best Buy is the equal emphasis on AI digital initiatives and in-store experiences. The company's NPS (Net Promoter Score) hit an 11-quarter high in the most recent quarter, and 70% of online orders are delivered within two days. With plans to strengthen Geek Squad's human support alongside AI, their balanced approach of not over-relying on AI serves as a useful reference.

Summary

Best Buy's agentic commerce strategy represents a leading case study in how major retailers can adapt to the age of AI agents. The three-pronged approach of partnering with OpenAI and Google while also making its own site agent-ready indicates the direction for the broader e-commerce industry.

Key areas to watch going forward include actual revenue contribution data from AI agent-driven purchases, whether Google's UCP becomes established as an industry standard, and what countermeasures Amazon develops. For e-commerce businesses, the first step is structuring product data to be "readable" by AI.