SAP Presents Comprehensive Analysis of Agentic AI Commerce Transformation — The Future of Retail Through 'Discovery, Payments, and Trust'

SAP Announces Next-Generation AI Retail Solutions at NRF 2026

Agentic AI Is Reshaping Commerce

Agentic AI represents a fundamental change in how commerce works. Read how SAP solutions are helping retailers take practical steps today.

In January 2026, SAP published a comprehensive analysis at the world's largest retail industry event "NRF 2026: Retail's Big Show" on how agentic AI is transforming commerce. The company organized its findings around three axes—"Discovery," "Payments," and "Trust"—and presented practical steps retailers should take immediately.

Balaji Balasubramanian, President and Chief Product Officer of Customer Experience & Consumer Industries at SAP, stated: "Retailers are facing a reality where AI is no longer optional." He emphasized that "SAP provides a single closed-loop AI-enhanced retail operating system that integrates planning, execution, and engagement."

Background and Industry Trends

Agentic AI refers to AI that goes beyond mere information provision to autonomously act on behalf of users and complete tasks. If 2025 was the year of AI "product descriptions," 2026 is set to become "the year AI agents make purchasing decisions," according to eMarketer's analysis.

According to McKinsey's predictions, agentic commerce could redirect $3-5 trillion of global retail spending by 2030, with approximately $1 trillion coming from the U.S. market. Already, about 6% of all searches go through AI-powered search engines, and traffic to retailers from AI sources has increased 1,200% year-over-year.

This transformation is more than a technology trend. Major players including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI have successively announced agentic commerce capabilities, and fierce competition has begun over "whose AI agent will become the default interface for shopping."

Three Transformation Axes Presented by SAP

Transformation of Discovery

Traditional product search involved consumers opening multiple tabs and reading dozens of reviews. In the agentic AI era, consumers simply need to ask their agent to "understand my needs, scan the market, and return trusted recommendations considering price, shipping, sustainability, return policies, and past purchase history."

To address this change, SAP is introducing a "Storefront Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server" as part of Commerce Cloud. This enables retailers to publish product, pricing, inventory, and promotional information in formats that AI systems can directly understand. It becomes the foundation for realizing true "channelless commerce experiences" on AI platforms like ChatGPT.

Transformation of Payments

Mastercard's EVP of Core Payments for Asia Pacific told CNBC: "The big shift in commerce happened with the move from physical stores to e-commerce. Now we're seeing the next shift from e-commerce to agentic commerce. Cash to digital, and digital to intelligent."

Visa is enabling secure payments by AI agents through its "Intelligent Commerce" platform. Leveraging 4.8 billion payment credentials and a network of over 150 million merchants, it implements multi-layered defense through tokenization, authentication, and monitoring. Additionally, the "Trusted Agent Protocol" works with over 10 partners to distinguish legitimate AI agents from fraudulent bots.

OpenAI has also co-developed the Agentic Commerce Protocol with Stripe and launched the "Instant Checkout" feature in the U.S., enabling direct purchases from Etsy and Shopify merchants on ChatGPT.

Building Trust

Consumer surveys show that 88% want clear sourcing information, 87% want verified reviews, and 75% want to understand how AI answers are generated. Forrester research shows only about one-third of consumers agree to complete payments through AI answer engines, with data privacy concerns being the main reason.

OpenAI has adopted the design principle that "agentic commerce should be built on trust," where "users maintain control and explicitly confirm each step before actions are taken." Google's AP2 (Agent Payments Protocol) introduces cryptographically signed digital contracts called "mandates" to ensure tamper-proof and verifiable user instructions.

Impact and Implications for E-commerce Businesses

Ananda Chakravarty, Vice President at IDC Retail Insights, evaluates: "SAP's differentiator is providing a comprehensive agentic operating system that works in the background, connects data, and orchestrates agents."

Specific solutions SAP will release in 2026 are as follows:

Retail Intelligence Solution (Expected H1 2026) Offered as part of SAP Business Data Cloud. It integrates real-time data from sales, inventory, customers, and suppliers, using AI simulations to improve demand forecast accuracy, reduce inventory costs, and enhance service levels.

Order Reliability Agent (Expected Q2 2026) Offered as part of SAP Order Management Services. It proactively identifies and resolves issues related to order status, inventory availability, and fulfillment risks, preventing customer impact before it occurs.

What e-commerce businesses should address immediately is "data infrastructure preparation." Balasubramanian emphasizes that "data foundation is the key to winning in the agent era." To accurately convey product information to AI agents, structured data and publication in AI-readable formats are essential.

Conclusion

The transformation of commerce through agentic AI is no longer a future story. Visa predicts that by the 2026 holiday season, millions of consumers will complete purchases using AI agents.

On the other hand, as Amazon CEO Andy Jassy points out, "it will take everyone longer than they think to perfect these experiences. 2026 is not the goal—it's one step on the journey."

However, the gap between businesses preparing for that "one step" and those watching from the sidelines will be decisive. The three axes SAP presented—"Discovery, Payments, and Trust"—represent an important framework for all e-commerce businesses to assess their readiness for the agentic commerce era. Going forward, attention to industry-standard protocol developments like Google's Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is also necessary.