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Consumers Don't Trust AI to Shop for Them & Merchants Aren't Ready, and the Race to Own the Checkout Just Got More Interesting
A new report finds that 73% of merchants are not equipped for AI-driven shopping, even as consumer adoption grows and the stakes rise. Google is using its Google I/O developer conference to push its Universal Commerce Protocol deeper into the checkout stack. DHL and USPS just signed a $10 billion last-mile delivery deal that reshapes how parcels move across the country. And Insider One's acquisition of Bluecore is a sign that the agentic marketing platform category is consolidating.
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.
Read more: https://www.gregzakowicz.com/blog/future-of-agentic-ai-in-retail
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.
Read more: https://developers.googleblog.com/the-latest-updates-to-google-pay/
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.
Read more: https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/2026/05/29/dhl-usps-partner-last-mile-delivery/
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.
Payment Systems Aren't Ready for AI Shoppers, Amazon Replaces Rufus, and Marketing Metrics Get an AI Overhaul
Chargebacks911 warns that dispute systems aren't built for AI agents making purchases, Amazon sidelines Rufus and makes Alexa the main AI shopping interface, B2B marketers shift focus from traffic to AI visibility, and Starbucks cuts 300 more corporate jobs while opening a Nashville office.
In today's brief: Payment infrastructure faces a reckoning as AI agents start buying things on behalf of consumers. Amazon is done experimenting with Rufus and putting Alexa front and center for shopping. B2B marketers are learning that website traffic isn't the metric that matters anymore. And Starbucks is cutting another 300 office jobs while its turnaround plan racks up costs.
Today's stories:
1. Chargebacks911 warns payment systems aren't ready for AI shopping agents
2. Amazon replaces Rufus with Alexa for Shopping in the main search bar
3. B2B marketing metrics shift from traffic to AI visibility
4. Starbucks cuts 300 more corporate jobs, takes $400 million charge
Payment Systems Aren't Built for AI Agents
Chargebacks911 is raising an alarm that nobody asked for, but everyone should hear: the entire dispute and chargeback infrastructure is not ready for AI agents making purchases.
When an AI agent buys something on your behalf, and it goes wrong, who disputes it? The consumer, the agent provider, the merchant, or some combination of all three? The current system assumes a human clicked "buy" and can explain what happened. That breaks down when software makes the decision.
The problem isn't theoretical. AI shopping agents are already live in limited form through tools like ChatGPT's shopping features and various browser extensions. As these scale, banks and payment processors are going to face disputes they have no framework to handle. The software made the purchase, and models don't have purchase intent in the legal sense.
The real issue is accountability. If an agent buys the wrong product, processes a duplicate order, or misinterprets instructions, the dispute process has to figure out where liability sits. Right now, it doesn't.
Read more: https://techround.co.uk/artificial-intelligence/risks-ai-agents-ecommerce-businesses-banks/
Amazon Sidelines Rufus and Goes All-In on Alexa
Amazon replaced Rufus with Alexa for Shopping in its main search bar, and the shift is telling. Rufus was the AI shopping assistant Amazon launched with fanfare less than a year ago. Now it's been moved to a side menu while Alexa takes the prime real estate.
Amazon is betting that voice and conversational interfaces are the path forward. Alexa has brand recognition, existing integrations, and years of user behavior data. Rufus was new and unfamiliar. Putting Alexa in the search bar makes the AI shopping experience feel like an extension of something people already use.
For consumers, the experience is more conversational. You can ask Alexa to find products, compare options, and complete purchases without typing queries or scanning through result pages. For Amazon, this is a way to keep shoppers inside its ecosystem longer and reduce friction at the point of purchase.
It also puts pressure on Google, which has been slower to integrate its AI shopping tools into the main search experience. Amazon's bet is that people will get used to asking Alexa instead of searching, and once that behavior sticks, it's hard to reverse.
Read more: https://www.retaildive.com/news/amazon-ai-alexa-for-shopping/820218/
B2B Marketers Are Measuring Different Things Now
Website traffic is losing its spot as the primary success metric for B2B marketing. A new report from 10Fold found that 52% of B2B tech marketing leaders now see AI-generated search as their top channel for reaching buyers.
Buyers are getting answers from ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google AI Overviews without ever clicking through to a vendor site, meaning fewer visits but not necessarily fewer conversions. About 42% of respondents said both visibility and traffic increased, but others are seeing stronger lead quality even with lower site visits.
The priority now is whether AI systems recognize your content as credible enough to cite, summarize, or reference. That puts the focus on authority signals like media coverage, analyst mentions, expert bylines, proprietary research, and influencer validation. Producing more content doesn't help if it all sounds the same as everything else the AI is reading.
Marketing teams now have to figure out how to measure influence when buyers never land on their site but still show up in the pipeline better informed and further along in the buying process. The metrics haven't caught up to the behavior yet.
Read more: https://martech.org/the-ai-search-shift-changing-b2b-marketing-metrics/
Starbucks Cuts 300 More Jobs as Turnaround Costs Pile Up
Starbucks is laying off 300 corporate employees and closing four regional offices in the U.S., the third round of office cuts since 2025. The company is also taking a $400 million restructuring charge, split between real estate impairments and severance.
Sales have started to recover under CEO Brian Niccol's "Back to Starbucks" plan, which includes store renovations, hiring more baristas, and menu refreshes. But those investments are expensive. Store operating costs jumped 7% in the first half of the fiscal year, and profit margins remain below their historical levels.
The company is targeting $2 billion in cost savings over the next two years, and cutting office jobs is part of that. Starbucks employed about 9,000 people in U.S. corporate roles as of last September. The 300 cuts announced now will likely be followed by more internationally as the company reviews its overseas structure.
The regional office closures in Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, and Burbank come as Starbucks opens a second major office in Nashville, which will eventually house 2,000 employees. The Nashville move has caused tension in Seattle, where Starbucks has been headquartered for decades and where former CEO Howard Schultz recently criticized local officials for policies he says are hostile to business.
Read more: https://www.ft.com/content/2ae677ec-73be-4be1-8158-f56633cf0708
That's it for today.
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FAQs
Who is liable when an AI shopping agent makes a wrong purchase?
Current dispute and chargeback systems don't have a clear answer for AI agent purchases. Liability could fall on the consumer, the AI provider, the merchant, or some combination of all three, but payment processors have no established framework to handle these disputes since AI models don't have "purchase intent" in the legal sense.
What happened to Amazon Rufus?
Amazon replaced Rufus with Alexa for Shopping in its main search bar in May 2026, moving Rufus to a side menu. The change signals Amazon's bet that its established Alexa brand with years of user data is more effective than introducing a new AI chatbot.
Is website traffic still the most important metric for B2B marketing?
No, website traffic is losing its position as the primary B2B marketing success metric. According to a 2026 report from 10Fold, 52% of B2B tech marketing leaders now consider AI-generated search their top channel, with the priority shifting to whether AI systems recognize content as credible enough to cite or reference.
How much is Starbucks' restructuring costing the company?
Starbucks is taking a $400 million restructuring charge in 2026, covering 300 corporate job cuts and four regional office closures. This is part of a $2 billion cost savings target over two years under CEO Brian Niccol's "Back to Starbucks" turnaround plan.
Rufus Product Optimization, Target Goes All-In on Stores, LinkedIn Leads the Field, and Does Agentic Commerce Has a Dispute Problem?
Amazon’s Rufus may suggest your competitor’s products if you’re not careful. Target is committing $5 billion to store remodels and new locations as physical retail shows measurable sales lifts. LinkedIn leads all major B2B ad platforms with 121% ROAS, and agentic commerce is building payment rails while the dispute layer remains unsolved.
In today’s brief: Keyword-stuffing on Amazon is going the way of the Buffalo (p.s. go Bills), physical retail is having a moment, B2B marketers are finally getting the LinkedIn ROI data they've been asking for, and agentic commerce is running into its first real infrastructure headache.
Today's Stories:
Amazon Rufus may recommend your competitors
Target commits $5B to 130+ store remodels and 30 new locations
LinkedIn posts 121% ROAS, the only positive return among major B2B ad platforms
Agentic commerce has payment rails in progress, but no dispute layer to match
Amazon’s Rufus May Recommend Your Competitor If You’re Not Careful
Amazon optimization is evolving from keyword stuffing to conversational relevance. Sellers are being warned that Amazon’s Rufus AI shopping assistant may actively steer shoppers toward competing products if a listing doesn’t clearly answer customer questions. If a shopper asks something like “Will this work with an iPhone 16 Plus?” and the listing provides vague or incomplete information, Rufus may immediately suggest better-matching competitor products instead. Bad dog, Rufus!
This shifts Amazon SEO and product optimization for sellers. Rather than focusing mostly on keywords, brands now need “answer-complete” listings that directly address real shopper questions. Rufus prioritizes highly structured and trustworthy content, especially product descriptions, A+ content, and structured attributes such as dimensions, compatibility, materials, and fit. Reviews and customer Q&A act as secondary validation sources, while hidden metadata and image-only information have much less influence on AI-generated recommendations.
To adapt, sellers are encouraged to think like shoppers and audit their listings around likely customer questions and use cases, such as by replacing vague marketing language with specific claims, reinforcing key product details across multiple sections of a listing, and using AI tools to identify gaps in question coverage.
Target Is Betting $5 Billion on Its Stores
Target just made its position on physical retail very clear. The company is putting $5 billion into its store network, with more than 130 remodels planned this year and 30 new stores on the way. This is a full commitment to the idea that physical stores are worth the investment, not a test-and-learn pilot.
Part of what makes the math work is scale. About 76% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a Target. That kind of reach turns the store network into something closer to a distribution system than a traditional retail footprint, and it's why the company treats remodels as infrastructure spending rather than interior design.
The early returns support the bet. Stores that have gone through a remodel are seeing low-to-mid single-digit sales lifts. That's not a headline number on its own, but apply it across hundreds of locations and the economics get interesting fast.
Read more: https://corporate.target.com/news-features/article/2026/05/target-store-remodels-new-stores-strategy
Is LinkedIn the Only B2B Ad Platform Actually Making Money
If you've been defending LinkedIn ad spend to skeptical executives, Dreamdata just handed you some useful ammunition. The company's 2026 B2B benchmarks report found LinkedIn is the only major paid social platform delivering a positive return on ad spend: 121% ROAS compared to 67% for Google and 51% for Meta.
LinkedIn now accounts for 41% of B2B paid social budgets, and that allocation looks well-supported by the numbers. The buying cycle data helps explain the dynamic: the average B2B buyer journey now runs 272 days, up from 211 a year ago, with sales pipeline visibility showing up around day 220. Staying visible to professional audiences across a nine-month cycle requires a platform that can target based on professional identity, and that's where LinkedIn has a genuine edge.
The 121% figure won't hold for every account, but the broader finding is consistent: LinkedIn works for B2B in ways that general-purpose platforms don't.
Agentic Commerce Is Getting Payment Rails, But No Dispute Layer
The vision for agentic commerce is simple: AI agents buy things on your behalf and the whole experience is seamless. Visa, Mastercard, and others are already building the payment infrastructure to make that work. What nobody has built yet is what happens when something goes wrong.
Donald Kossmann, CTO of Chargebacks911, laid out the problem in a recent piece: in a traditional purchase, there's a checkout event that creates a consent signal, and that signal is what makes chargebacks possible when a dispute arises. In agentic transactions, consent is granted before the purchase, often at the authorization stage rather than at checkout. Without that checkout moment, there's no clean mechanism to dispute a transaction.
McKinsey projects agentic commerce could represent $3 to $5 trillion in transaction value. That's a significant amount of volume to route through a system that can't yet handle a return. The payment rails are coming while the dispute layer may be very far behind.
Read more: https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2026/05/infrastructure-agentic-pay/
That's it for today.
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FAQs
How much is Target investing in physical retail stores?
Target Corporation is investing $5 billion into its physical retail footprint, including more than 130 store remodels and 30 new stores planned for 2026. The retailer says the strategy is designed to strengthen both in-store shopping and fulfillment capabilities as stores increasingly function like local distribution hubs.
What percentage of Americans live near a Target store?
About 76% of the U.S. population lives within 10 miles of a Target Corporation store. That proximity gives the retailer a major logistics advantage for same-day pickup, delivery, and inventory distribution.
Which B2B advertising platform has the highest ROAS in 2026?
According to Dreamdata’s 2026 B2B benchmarks report, LinkedIn is the only major paid social platform delivering a positive return on ad spend (ROAS), averaging 121% compared to 67% for Google and 51% for Meta.
How long is the average B2B buyer journey in 2026?
The average B2B buyer journey now lasts 272 days, up from 211 days a year earlier. Research cited by Dreamdata shows most companies do not gain meaningful sales pipeline visibility until around day 220, reinforcing the importance of long-term brand visibility and nurturing campaigns on platforms like LinkedIn.
Amazon Rufus Hits 250M Users with Auto-Buy, Agentic Commerce Reshapes Brand Competition, and B2B Marketers Can’t Measure What They’re Spending
Amazon’s Rufus reaches 250 million users with autonomous buying features and price transparency tools. Meanwhile, agentic commerce is creating openings for challenger brands while threatening legacy CPG players, Loblaw’s ChatGPT integration proves customers want AI grocery shopping, and B2B marketers face a disconnect between rising budgets and measurement capabilities.
In today’s brief: Amazon turns Rufus into an autonomous shopping agent with 250 million users, agentic commerce threatens to upend decades of brand dominance in CPG, Loblaw proves AI grocery shopping works, and B2B marketers are getting budget increases without knowing what’s working.
Today’s stories:
1. Amazon expands Rufus AI with 12-month price tracking and auto-buy as usage surges to 250 million
2. Agentic commerce threatens legacy brands while opening doors for challengers
3. Loblaw’s ChatGPT grocery integration exceeds adoption expectations
4. B2B marketing budgets are growing, but ROI measurement remains the top challenge
Amazon Expands Rufus AI with 12-Month Price Tracking and Auto-Buy
Amazon’s Rufus AI assistant now shows 12 months of price history and can automatically buy products when they hit your target price. The expansion comes as Rufus reaches 250 million monthly active users, up 115% year over year, with engagement jumping 400%.
The auto-buy feature lets customers set a target price for any product, and Rufus handles the purchase when the price drops. It’s a shift from chatbot to autonomous shopping agent that could fundamentally change how people buy online. Amazon says customers using Rufus are 60% more likely to complete a purchase.
The price history transparency matters too. Showing 30, 90, and 365 days of pricing data makes it harder for retailers to play games with fake discounts or temporary price bumps before sales. Since its launch in 2024, over 50 million customers have checked price history, averaging three checks per month.
For sellers, pricing consistency now matters more than ever. Rufus surfaces price history directly to shoppers, so strategic discounting needs to be actually strategic. Timed price drops can trigger automatic purchases from customers who’ve set alerts. The shift toward agentic commerce is happening fast, and Amazon is betting on being the platform where it scales.
How Agentic Commerce Threatens Legacy Brands While Opening Doors for Challengers
If enough consumers let AI agents make buying decisions, legacy CPG brands are in trouble. That’s the takeaway from a new joint report by Kearney and NIQ analyzing $7.2 trillion in consumer spending across 90 countries.
The report finds that innovation, not volume, is becoming the main growth driver for food and beverage brands. Agentic commerce levels the playing field because AI agents don’t care about brand legacy or shelf dominance. They match product attributes to consumer preferences. A niche brand focused on innovation can compete directly with established players if its products better match what the AI is looking for.
For retailers, this could mean that in-store interactions need to become more experiential. Agentic shopping handles transactions. People come to stores to see, touch, taste, and get advice. The routine replenishment gets delegated to AI.
The data shows 74% of consumers already use AI to research products. Among AI shoppers, 31% will shop directly with a retailer if they have an emotional connection, while only 6% will direct their AI to recommend a specific brand even if it costs more. That gap shows how brand loyalty works in an AI-mediated world.
I’ve written more about the agentic AI opportunity in ecommerce and the future of agentic AI in retail if you want to dig deeper.
Loblaw’s ChatGPT Grocery Integration Exceeds Adoption Expectations
Loblaw says customer adoption of its ChatGPT grocery integration is running ahead of expectations. The Canadian grocer integrated OpenAI’s chatbot to help shoppers build shopping lists, find recipes, and plan meals, and it turns out people actually want to use AI for grocery shopping.
The success makes sense when you think about the friction in grocery shopping. Building a meal plan, checking what’s in season, figuring out substitutions, and finding recipes that use what you already have. These are real problems that AI can solve without requiring people to learn new interfaces or change their behavior much.
What Loblaw is doing right is meeting customers where they already are. ChatGPT integration means people can use familiar conversational AI to handle grocery tasks without downloading new apps and creating new accounts.
This is part of a broader trend where grocers are racing to figure out AI-powered shopping before Amazon and Walmart lock it down. The winners will be the ones who make AI shopping feel like a natural extension of how people already shop.
B2B Marketing Budgets Growing, But ROI Measurement Remains Top Barrier
Here’s a strange disconnect: 56% of B2B marketers expect budgets to grow in 2026, yet 25% say measuring ROI remains their biggest barrier. You’d think if budgets are growing, someone would be measuring what’s working.
The data comes from the EndeavorB2B Marketing Benchmark Report, which also found that 49% of organizations are increasing in-person event budgets while 37% plan to expand virtual events. Trade shows, roundtables, and small-group meetings are where deals move from interesting to serious.
B2B buyers are moving through discovery, comparison, and decision-making in non-linear ways, disrupting the traditional funnel. Marketers don’t control the path, so funnel-based attribution becomes less reliable. The fix is to create content buyers want, show up in peer networks and reviews, and make it easy for them to get information.
That's it for today.
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FAQs
How many users does Amazon Rufus have?
Amazon Rufus reached 250 million monthly active users as of May 2026, with usage growing 115% year over year. Engagement jumped 400%, and Amazon says customers using Rufus are 60% more likely to complete a purchase compared to those who don't use it.
What percentage of consumers use AI to research products?
74% of consumers already use AI to research products, according to a Kearney and NIQ report analyzing $7.2 trillion in consumer spending. Among AI shoppers, 31% will shop directly with a retailer if they have an emotional connection, while only 6% will direct their AI to recommend a specific brand even if it costs more.
Are B2B marketing budgets growing in 2026?
Yes. 56% of B2B marketers expect budgets to grow in 2026, according to the EndeavorB2B Marketing Benchmark Report. 49% of organizations are increasing in-person event budgets, and 37% plan to expand virtual events. However, 25% say measuring ROI remains their biggest barrier, creating a disconnect between spending and accountability.
Why is Loblaw's ChatGPT integration succeeding?
Loblaw's ChatGPT grocery integration is exceeding expectations because it meets customers where they already are. People can use familiar conversational AI to build shopping lists, find recipes, and plan meals without downloading new apps or creating new accounts. It solves real grocery friction points without requiring behavior change.
The Brief: Amazon's Logistics, Private Labels Get a Makeover, and AI Giants Want to Own Your Shopping Cart
Amazon opened its logistics network to all U.S. businesses this week, putting direct pressure on FedEx and UPS and forcing every retailer and brand to reconsider their supply chain relationships. Add in a major wave of private-label packaging redesigns from Walmart, ALDI, and Target, plus three very different agentic commerce strategies from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google, and it is a busy week in retail and ecommerce.
In today's Azimuth brief: Amazon officially turned its logistics empire into a product any business can buy. Walmart and ALDI are rethinking what their store shelves look like from the inside out. And Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google are all trying to solve the agentic commerce puzzle with completely different pieces.
Today's stories:
1. Amazon opens its entire logistics network to any U.S. business
2. Why major retailers are redesigning their private-label packaging
3. Where Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google each stand in the agentic commerce race
Amazon Opens Its Logistics to Everyone
Amazon launched Supply Chain Services this week, opening its logistics infrastructure to any U.S. business, not just sellers on its marketplace. The offering bundles freight forwarding, customs brokerage, warehousing, transportation, and last-mile delivery into a single package. P&G, 3M, American Eagle, and Lands' End are among the early adopters.
The network Amazon is putting to work: 200-plus fulfillment centers, 80,000 trailers, 24,000 intermodal containers, and 100 cargo aircraft. All of it was originally built to run Amazon's own retail operation. Now they're monetizing it.
FedEx dropped 9%, and UPS fell 10% on the news, and the concern is straightforward. Amazon can price aggressively because the fixed costs of this infrastructure are already covered by the core business. Competing with that as a traditional shipper is a tough spot.
For retailers and brands, the real question is a trust one. Handing your logistics over to a company that competes with you on the shelf is a trade-off every supply chain team is now going to have to think through. The cost savings might make sense. The strategic exposure is the part that takes a little longer to work out.
Private Label Gets a Packaging Refresh
Walmart, ALDI, and Target have all done significant redesigns of their private-label packaging recently, and the rationale is the same across all of them: the products are good, but the packaging does not reflect that.
Walmart's overhaul of Great Value is the most ambitious of the group. The brand spans nearly 10,000 grocery and consumer products, and this is its first full design refresh in over 30 years. Walmart's own customer research found that shoppers liked the quality and the price, but "didn't particularly feel proud to display it in their home or with their families." That is a useful thing to know about your flagship store brand.
ALDI went through a similar refresh to unify the look of all its private-label products under a consistent visual identity. Target updated its Up&up line in 2024 with cleaner, bolder packaging. The pattern is not a coincidence. These retailers are treating their store brands less like budget fallbacks and more like actual brands they want shoppers to pick on purpose.
Private label has been gaining share for years, mostly driven by price. The interesting shift now is that the competition is moving up the value chain. When a store brand looks good sitting out on the counter, the old calculus of "name brand vs. store brand" starts to blur. National brands have been dealing with the price challenge for a while. The design challenge is a newer front.
Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google Are Running Very Different Plays in Agentic Commerce
Digital Commerce 360 put out a solid breakdown of where the three major AI labs stand in agentic commerce, and the most notable thing about it is how different their approaches are from each other.
Anthropic ran an internal experiment called "Project Deal," where 69 employees used AI agents to negotiate with each other in a test marketplace. The bots closed 186 deals totaling more than $4,000. Small dollar amounts, but it is the clearest proof of concept yet for agent-to-agent commerce working in practice. Anthropic also donated MCP, its Model Context Protocol, to the Linux Foundation, which is a significant move on the infrastructure layer. (If you want more background on where this is all heading, I've written about the agentic AI opportunity in retail here.
OpenAI moved away from its original in-ChatGPT checkout experience and pivoted to a ChatGPT app model, where retailers integrate directly into the platform. The Agentic Commerce Protocol it built with Stripe, is still active, and Target, Sephora, Nordstrom, Lowe's, Best Buy, and Home Depot are already plugged in. It is a different architecture than where they started, but the retailer list is serious.
Google is going deeper into enterprise retailer partnerships. Ulta Beauty and Macy's both have live AI shopping agents built on Google's technology. It has multiple active protocols in the market: UCP for product discovery (built with Shopify), AP2 for payments, and A2A for agent-to-agent coordination. Google bets that its existing retailer relationships and ad infrastructure give it an edge that the others cannot easily replicate.
None of these approaches has won yet. The fact that each company is building its own protocols means the underlying infrastructure of agentic commerce is going to be fragmented for a while. For anyone in ecommerce, understanding which protocols your tech stack supports is going to matter sooner than most people expect.
That's it for today.
The Brief: Sam’s Club’s One-Hour Delivery, MarTech Replacement Rates Slow, Affiliate Content Performance, and Ulta Beauty and Agentic Commerce
Today's retail and marketing brief covers Sam's Club's aggressive move into ultra-fast delivery, the slowdown in MarTech platform churn, growing attribution challenges for affiliate marketers in the AI age, and Ulta Beauty's deployment of agentic commerce through Google Gemini.
Today's Azimuth brief covers Sam's Club's aggressive move into ultra-fast delivery, the slowdown in MarTech platform churn, growing attribution challenges for affiliate marketers in the AI age, and Ulta Beauty's deployment of agentic commerce through Google Gemini.
Today's stories:
• Sam's Club launches one-hour express delivery nationwide
• MarTech replacement rates drop as companies shift focus to efficiency
• Brands struggle to measure affiliate content performance in the AI age
• Ulta Beauty deploys agentic commerce with Google Gemini
1. Sam's Club Launches One-Hour Express Delivery Nationwide
Sam's Club has rolled out one-hour Express delivery across all 600-plus stores, taking aim at Amazon's delivery dominance with a $10 service for Plus members. Since launching on April 2, the retailer has fulfilled nearly 65,000 orders with an average delivery time of 55 minutes. The 10 fastest deliveries clocked in under 12 minutes.
Members now choose between two tiers: the new one-hour service ($10 for Plus, $22 for Club members) or the existing three-hour option ($5 for Plus, $17 for Club). There's no purchase minimum, and items are priced the same as in-club with no markups.
What people are ordering reveals the shift from novelty to necessity. A significant share includes everyday essentials like bottled water, produce, rotisserie chicken, and paper goods. New parents in Amarillo got baby supplies in 11 minutes. Pet owners in Louisville received cat food at the same time.
2. MarTech Replacement Rates Slow as Companies Shift Focus to Efficiency
Source: MarTech.org
Marketing technology replacement rates are declining as companies shift from constant platform churn to extracting more value from existing stacks. Rather than ripping and replacing every few years, marketing leaders are doubling down on optimization, integration, and getting teams to actually use the tools they already have.
The change reflects broader economic pressure and MarTech maturation. Budgets are tighter, implementations are expensive, and switching costs are real. Teams are realizing that the problem often isn't the technology itself, but how it's deployed, integrated, and adopted across the organization.
This shift from churn to efficiency has implications for both vendors and practitioners. Vendors need to focus on retention, expansion, and proving ROI rather than purely acquisition. For marketers, it means getting serious about change management, training, and making sure the stack they have is fully leveraged before adding more to it.
3. Brands Struggle to Measure Affiliate Content Performance in the AI Age
Brands like Adobe and Away are finding it increasingly difficult to measure how well their affiliate content performs as AI search engines and chatbots reshape discovery. Traditional tracking mechanisms break down when content gets summarized, rewritten, or pulled into AI-generated responses rather than driving direct clicks to publisher sites.
The challenge is attribution. When someone asks an AI assistant for product recommendations, and the AI synthesizes information from affiliate content without sending users to the original review or comparison article, how do you measure that influence? How do you credit the affiliate partner when the transaction happens three steps removed from their content?
This is a problem. Affiliate marketing has traditionally relied on clear click-and-conversion paths. AI intermediaries muddy those waters. Brands and affiliates will need new frameworks for tracking influence and crediting referrals in an environment where content gets consumed indirectly through AI summaries rather than direct site visits.
4. Ulta Beauty Deploys Agentic Commerce with Google Gemini
Ulta Beauty is making its products shoppable directly within Google Search and the Gemini app, adopting the Universal Commerce Protocol to enable agentic commerce. The retailer is also launching Ulta AI, a shopping assistant built with Gemini Enterprise that leverages insights from Ulta's 46 million member base.
The UCP integration allows AI agents to interact with Ulta's ecommerce platform, meaning shoppers can discover, compare, and complete purchases without leaving the AI interface. This puts Ulta into the emerging agentic commerce flow where discovery, intent, and purchase are stitched together in a single interaction.
Beauty is a high-friction vertical where visual signals, brand trust, and personalization matter. Ulta's loyalty dataset and curated assortments give it a defensible advantage versus general marketplaces that win on logistics. The partnership positions Ulta to capture demand as shopping behavior shifts from browsing sites to asking assistants for recommendations.
That's it for today.
The Brief: Staples-Party City Partnership, Amazon's GLP-1 Program, Record Mother's Day Spending, and Parents' Digital Shopping Surge
News: stories Staples and Party City announced a strategic partnership bringing party supplies to 700+ stores, while Amazon One Medical launched a GLP-1 weight loss program starting at $149/month. Also: Mother's Day spending is expected to hit a record $38 billion, and new research shows parents engage in 50% more digital shopping days than average consumers.
Welcome to The Azimuth Brief for April 22, 2026. Here are the top retail and ecommerce stories that caught my attention.
Today's most interesting stories:
Staples partners with Party City in 700+ stores nationwide
Amazon launches GLP-1 weight loss program through One Medical
Mother's Day spending expected to hit record $38 billion
Parents drive 50% more digital shopping activity than average consumers
1. Staples and Party City Partner to Bring Party Supplies to 700+ Stores Nationwide
Staples and Party City announced a strategic partnership bringing Party City inside more than 700 Staples locations nationwide, just in time for graduation season. The collaboration makes Party City's selection of balloons, décor and party supplies available alongside Staples same-day print and marketing services, creating a single destination for personal and professional occasions.
The in-store experience features latex and foil balloons inflated with helium and ready to take home. Customers can choose from a range of colors, sizes, and designs. In the coming weeks, customers will also be able to schedule balloon pickups in advance through Staples.com and the Staples app.
Staples is celebrating the partnership with a buy 2, get 1 free offer on select foil balloons, valid through mid-June in store and online for in-store pickup. The deal applies to regularly priced foil balloons up to $6.99, with the discount applying to the lowest-priced item.
2. Amazon Launches GLP-1 Weight Loss Program Through One Medical
Amazon One Medical launched a comprehensive GLP-1 management program integrating weight loss treatment with primary care. The program combines virtual and in-person appointments, medication management, and pharmacy fulfillment through Amazon Pharmacy, positioning weight management as a long-term chronic condition rather than a one-off prescription.
The program offers oral GLP-1 medications starting at $149 per month for cash-pay customers, while those with insurance can access medications starting at $25 per month. Injectable treatments like Wegovy and Zepbound start at $299 per month without insurance. Customers already using GLP-1 treatments can renew prescriptions on demand, with messaging consultations starting at $29 and video visits at $49.
Amazon Pharmacy makes the medications available with same-day delivery in nearly 3,000 cities today, expanding to 4,500 by year-end. The program integrates GLP-1 management into patients' broader primary care relationships, with clinicians monitoring how weight loss intersects with cardiovascular health, metabolic conditions, and overall health.
3. Mother's Day Spending Expected to Hit Record $38 Billion
Consumer spending on Mother's Day is expected to reach a record $38 billion, according to the annual survey released by the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics. The amount surpasses last year's total spending of $34.1 billion and exceeds the previous record of $35.7 billion set in 2023.
Consistent with recent years, 84% of US adults plan to celebrate Mother's Day. On a per-person basis, consumers plan to spend a record average of $284.25 on gifts, up from $259.04 last year and the previous record of $274.02 in 2023. Of those celebrating, 54% plan to purchase for their mother or stepmother, followed by a wife (22%) or daughter (13%).
The leading shopping destinations for gifts include online (33%) and department stores (33%), followed by specialty stores (29%) and discount stores (26%). Flowers remain the most popular gift category, with 75% of shoppers planning to purchase. Other top categories include greeting cards (74%), special outings such as dinner or brunch (63%), gift cards (55%), and clothing or accessories (51%). Jewelry leads Mother's Day spending at $7.5 billion, followed by special outings ($6.4 billion) and electronics ($4.4 billion).
4. Parents Engage in 50% More Digital Shopping Days Than Average Consumers
Parents engage in 50% more digital shopping activity days than the average consumer, according to "The 2025 Global Digital Shopping Index" study commissioned by Visa Acceptance Solutions and released by PYMNTS Intelligence. The report documents mobile shopping as a mainstream retail behavior worldwide, with 48% of consumers using a phone for their most recent purchase and 60% browsing merchant sites multiple times a week.
Shoppers with children under their care used a phone in 58.6% of their most recent purchases, compared with 40.7% for non-parents. Parents logged 63.5 digital shopping days per month versus a 50.9 average across the full sample. The pattern holds across markets, even in countries where digital adoption is less intense overall, parents remain highly engaged mobile shoppers.
On 59% of the days parents shop digitally, they make a purchase, showing that this group is not just browsing more often but converting at a higher rate. The research shows these consumers gravitate toward clear payment choices, rewards, coupons, product details, and easy-to-navigate stores. Notably, 92% of shoppers used or wanted to use their preferred payment method at the merchant where they made their last purchase, making payment choice the top digital feature globally.
That's it for today.
Google’s AI Landing Page Patent: What It Means for Ecommerce and Brand Control
Google’s newest patent signals a shift from sending traffic to your website to potentially replacing it altogether. Instead of ranking pages, Google may generate its own AI-powered version of your storefront, tailored to each user. That raises bigger questions about brand control, data ownership, and what the future of search actually looks like for businesses.
Google Doesn’t Just Want to Rank Your Website Anymore — It May Replace It
Google’s latest patent suggests a seismic shift may be afoot. Instead of sending users to your website, it may evaluate your page and build its own version if yours isn’t good enough.
On January 27, 2026, the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted Google Patent US12536233B1, titled “AI-generated content page tailored to a specific user.” At a glance, it reads like a technical improvement. In practice, it points to a future where Google doesn’t just decide which website you see, but whether you see one at all.
From Ranking Pages to Rebuilding Them
At the center of the patent is something called a “Landing Page Score.” Before sending a user to a website, Google evaluates whether that page meets a certain threshold for quality and usability, using signals that marketers already recognize but may now carry higher stakes.
These signals include performance metrics such as conversion rate, bounce rate, and click-through rate, along with qualitative factors like page design and content clarity. More importantly, the patent explicitly references functional gaps, including the absence of features like product filters, as indicators of poor usability. That detail suggests this isn’t just about relevance or keyword alignment, but about whether a page delivers a complete and usable experience.
If a page performs well, the experience remains largely unchanged. If it doesn’t, Google may take a different approach by generating an alternative version in real time using large language models, effectively creating its own optimized experience tailored to the individual user.
This is where the shift becomes clear. Google is no longer just organizing access to content; it is positioning itself to reconstruct the experience of that content.
The Rise of the “Google-Built” Storefront
The AI-generated pages described in the patent are not simple summaries or enhanced snippets. They are designed to function like complete landing pages, assembled dynamically based on available data and user context.
These experiences can include personalized headlines, structured product feeds, suggested filters, clear calls to action, and even conversational interfaces that guide users through decisions. In many cases, they may represent a more streamlined and efficient version of what the brand itself provides, particularly if the original site lacks certain usability features.
From a user perspective, this reduces friction and simplifies the path to purchase. From a brand perspective, however, it introduces a new layer between you and your customer, where the experience is no longer fully yours to control.
The Erosion of the Direct Relationship?
The most significant implication is not traditional traffic loss (that’s already happening with AI platforms) but the gradual erosion of the direct customer relationship that brands have spent years building.
A website has historically been the one place where a brand fully controls its narrative, design, and experience. It is where trust is built through storytelling, testimonials, UX decisions, and subtle signals that differentiate one company from another. When that interaction is mediated through a Google-generated interface, much of that differentiation risks being flattened into standardized components.
The transaction may still occur, but the experience belongs to Google. Over time, that shift can weaken brand equity in ways that are difficult to measure in the short term but meaningful in the long run.
Zero-Click Search Becomes Zero-Click Commerce
We are already seeing the rise of zero-click search, where users find answers without leaving the search results page. This patent extends that concept into commerce by allowing the entire journey—discovery, evaluation, and potentially conversion—to happen within Google’s ecosystem.
That shift has direct implications for data ownership and learning. When users interact with your website, you gain insight into behavior, preferences, and friction points, which in turn fuel optimization and personalization efforts. When those interactions happen on a platform instead, that feedback loop becomes less visible and less actionable.
Over time, that loss of insight can limit a brand’s ability to improve its own experience, creating a dependency on platforms that increasingly control both visibility and interaction.
A New Layer in the Economics of Search
Another important element in the patent is where these AI-generated experiences can appear. The system allows for their inclusion within sponsored results, which introduces the possibility that paid traffic may lead to a Google-generated page rather than the brand’s own website.
While the patent does not define how broadly this would be implemented, it signals a direction where Google captures more value across both the experience layer and the monetization layer. Brands may find themselves not only competing for visibility, but also participating in an environment where the destination itself is no longer owned.
For smaller and mid-sized businesses, this raises the stakes significantly. Competing in search may no longer be about who ranks best, but who meets the threshold to remain part of the experience at all.
A Broader Shift Toward Platform-Owned Experiences
Taken in isolation, this patent is a technical concept. Viewed in the context of broader industry trends, it aligns with a clear movement toward platform-owned experiences, where discovery and interaction are increasingly consolidated into a single environment.
Search is evolving from a gateway into a destination, compressing what was once a multi-step journey into a single interface. At the same time, the importance of structured data is growing as platforms rely more on what they can access and interpret than on how a page is designed in isolation.
This is where the idea of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) begins to emerge. Visibility is no longer just about ranking pages, but about ensuring your brand is accurately represented within AI-generated environments that assemble and present information on your behalf.
What This Means for Brands Now
This patent does not represent an immediate shift, but it does point to a direction that is already taking shape and worth preparing for.
First, data quality becomes foundational, as structured product information, accurate attributes, and strong visual assets may increasingly define how your brand is represented when the interface is no longer your own. Second, user experience becomes a gatekeeper rather than a differentiator, with basic functionality like navigation and filtering determining whether your page is included or bypassed.
At the same time, owned channels become more valuable, as email marketing, SMS marketing, and community-driven engagement offer a way to maintain direct relationships in an environment where discovery is increasingly intermediated. Finally, brands must invest in differentiation that cannot be easily replicated, including trust, storytelling, and identity, which do not translate cleanly into structured data or templated interfaces.
The Future of Search Is the Interface Itself
Google’s patent signals a shift that goes beyond rankings or algorithm updates and moves toward a model where the interface itself becomes the primary battleground for attention.
For users, this will likely result in faster, more personalized experiences that reduce friction and simplify decision-making. For brands, it introduces a more complex reality where visibility depends not only on being found, but on being selected, interpreted, and reconstructed by systems outside their control.
The companies that adapt will not simply focus on ranking higher. They will focus on how they are understood, how they are represented, and how they remain differentiated in a world where the final interaction may no longer happen on their own site.
Still need help digesting this? Check out this explainer video.
Google AI Landing Page Patent FAQs
What is Google’s AI landing page patent?
Google’s patent (US12536233B1) describes a system where it evaluates a webpage before sending users to it. If the page does not meet certain quality or usability standards, Google may generate its own AI-powered version instead of directing users to the original site.
What is a “Landing Page Score”?
A Landing Page Score is Google’s way of assessing page quality based on performance metrics like conversion rate and bounce rate, along with usability factors such as design, content clarity, and functionality. The patent specifically mentions missing features like product filters as a negative signal.
Will Google replace websites with AI-generated pages?
Not entirely, and not immediately. This is a patent, not a fully rolled-out product. However, it signals a direction where Google may intervene more directly in the user experience when a page is considered low quality.
How does this impact ecommerce brands and SEO?
Ecommerce brands may see fewer users reaching their websites directly, which affects branding, conversion control, and data collection. SEO will also evolve beyond rankings toward how content and product data are understood and used within AI-generated experiences.
What should businesses do to prepare?
Businesses should focus on improving user experience, maintaining clean and structured product data, and building direct relationships through owned channels like email and SMS. Strong brand differentiation will also become more important as platforms take a larger role in shaping the customer experience.