Consumers Don't Trust AI to Shop for Them & Merchants Aren't Ready, and the Race to Own the Checkout Just Got More Interesting

Jun 1

In today's brief: a new report paints a pretty rough picture of where merchants stand on AI readiness. Google used its I/O developer conference to quietly advance its checkout ambitions. DHL and USPS made their 25-year partnership official in a very big way. And two marketing tech companies just merged to build something that looks a lot like the operating system for agentic retail.

Today's stories:

73% of merchants aren't ready for the AI shopping era
Google Pay goes all-in on agentic checkout
DHL and USPS strike a $10 billion last-mile deal
Insider One acquires Bluecore to build the agentic marketing stack

AI Is Already Shopping. Merchants Are Not Ready for It.

A new report from Ballerine, a merchant risk and compliance platform, found that 73% of online sellers are not 'agent-ready,' meaning their digital infrastructure can't reliably support AI-driven shopping. Bain & Company projects agentic commerce could account for up to 25% of the U.S. online retail market by 2030, roughly $500 billion in annual spending, while consumer adoption is already accelerating. The merchant side hasn't kept pace.

AI agents need structured, machine-readable data to function, such as accurate inventory, clear policies, verified merchant identities, and real pricing. Most merchant websites were built for human shoppers who can read between the lines and fill in the gaps. When the data is incomplete or unreliable, agents either fail the task outright or, worse, send a shopper to a merchant they shouldn't have recommended in the first place.

Ballerine launched Agenticom.org to give the ecosystem a shared reference point for what needs to be built. Agentic commerce won't scale on the buyer side alone if the merchant side hasn't caught up, and right now it hasn't. For more on what that means for retail, see my piece on the future of agentic AI in retail if you want more context on where this is going.

Google Pay Wants to Be the Checkout Layer for the Agentic Era

At Google I/O, Google announced a round of Google Pay updates aimed less at the traditional checkout experience and more at building the infrastructure for AI-driven commerce. The biggest one is that existing Google Pay merchant IDs are now compatible with Google's Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), meaning merchants can participate in agentic commerce without rebuilding their payment stack, which removes a meaningful barrier to entry.

Google also launched a Google Pay and Wallet Developer MCP server, now in public preview, which lets AI agents plug into payment workflows to handle integration troubleshooting, trend analysis, and code generation. On the conversion side, they're bringing dynamic checkout callbacks to Android (already live on web), which allows the Google Pay button to move earlier in the purchase flow, like to product detail or cart pages, while still presenting accurate shipping costs and totals in real time.

There's also a cross-device authentication feature for desktop that takes aim at MFA prompts, one of the more reliable ways to lose a customer mid-checkout. Google routes that step to the user's phone instead, where a biometric or PIN handles it cleanly and quickly, which should improve conversion rates for merchants running checkout on the web.

DHL and USPS Just Made Their Long Partnership Very, Very Official

DHL eCommerce and the U.S. Postal Service signed a new exclusive multi-year contract for last-mile parcel delivery services worth over $10 billion, the largest agreement in a partnership that's been running for 25 years. Under the deal, DHL handles pickup, sortation through its 19 automated hubs, and linehaul across its air and ground network, while USPS takes the final mile, covering more than 170 million delivery points across 41,550 ZIP codes six days a week.

For both sides, the arrangement makes sense. DHL gets access to one of the most complete residential delivery networks in the country without having to build or maintain it, while USPS picks up long-term package volume at a time when its traditional mail business keeps shrinking. For shippers, that translates to better reach, especially outside major metro areas where private carriers either don't operate or aren't cost-effective.

For brands actually shipping through DHL, the most meaningful outcome is consistency. The long-term contract gives DHL the stability to invest deeper in its infrastructure, which should improve reliability over time. Whether that plays out in practice depends on how well DHL and USPS share data and coordinate handoffs, because the physical network only gets you so far. Tracking, exception management, and delivery visibility are what actually determine whether the experience improves for the end customer.

Insider One Acquires Bluecore, and the Agentic Marketing Stack Starts Taking Shape

New York-based customer engagement platform Insider One has acquired Bluecore, a retail martech company that serves more than 400 U.S. enterprise brands, including Sephora, J.Crew, ALO Yoga, and Ralph Lauren. Terms weren't disclosed. Bluecore's main asset is its Transparent ID Network, which processes over 10 billion daily shopper events and powers machine learning models built specifically for retail commerce.

Insider One's play here is about data infrastructure. Its platform already handles cross-channel journey orchestration, personalization, and AI agents that manage customer engagement workflows autonomously across 12 digital channels. What Bluecore adds is an identity graph that converts anonymous site visitors into known customers and keeps that data accurate and actionable across touchpoints, filling in a gap the platform needed to run autonomous customer engagement at scale.

The agentic marketing platform category is still early, but it's already producing real M&A activity, which is a sign that vendors are racing to assemble the complete stack before brands lock in their architecture choices. If you're evaluating marketing technology right now, understanding how each platform fits into the broader infrastructure layer that agentic commerce runs on matters as much as what the platform does on its own.

That's it for today.

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FAQs

Was Bluecore acquired?

Yes. Insider One, a customer engagement and AI marketing platform, acquired Bluecore in 2026. Bluecore serves more than 400 enterprise retail brands, including Sephora, J.Crew, and Ralph Lauren.

What percentage of merchants are ready for agentic commerce?

According to a 2026 Ballerine report, only 27% of online merchants have the structured data infrastructure that AI shopping agents need to work reliably. Most merchant websites were built for human shoppers, not agents, and that gap is becoming a real business problem as consumer adoption accelerates.

What is the DHL and USPS delivery partnership?

DHL and USPS signed a $10 billion exclusive agreement where DHL manages pickup, sortation, and linehaul while USPS handles the final mile to more than 170 million delivery points across the country. It's the largest deal in a partnership that's already been running for 25 years.

What is Google's Universal Commerce Protocol?

Google's Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) is the payment and commerce framework Google is building so that AI agents can complete purchases on behalf of shoppers using existing merchant infrastructure. Merchants with Google Pay IDs can now connect to UCP without rebuilding their payment stack.

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Greg Zakowicz