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Michelle Romero: Michelle.Romero@syf.com Tyler Allen: Tyler.Allen@syf.com
Article
May 18, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT
Key Takeaways
Understanding Agentic commerce
Agentic commerce is AI-powered shopping where consumers can search, compare, decide, and purchase products directly within an AI experience. At its simplest, agentic commerce means shopping through an AI assistant or AI agent. At its most advanced, it’s an intelligent digital commerce experience that can understand a shopper’s needs, answer questions, recommend products, surface financing options, and help complete a purchase— all in one conversation. As generative AI and conversational commerce continue to evolve, shopping is becoming less about navigating websites and more about asking questions and receiving personalized recommendations in real time.
How it works?
Imagine you’re shopping for a new vacuum cleaner. With agentic commerce, the shopping journey could look like this:
ASK QUESTIONS You tell the AI assistant
"I need a new vacuum for pet hair under $300. I live in an apartment and want something quiet."
The AI agent understands your needs and begins searching for products that match your preferences.
COMPARE OPTIONS The AI assistant compares products and recommends several options, explaining why each one fits your needs. It may also show pricing, availability, reviews, and financing offers from participating merchants. Instead of opening multiple tabs or visiting different retailer websites, the information is delivered in one streamlined AI-powered shopping experience.
COMPLETE THE PURCHASE Once you decide, you can simply say:
"Buy the second one."
The AI agent can then help complete the transaction without requiring the traditional checkout flow of manually adding products to carts, entering payment information, or moving across multiple websites. That’s the promise of agentic commerce: chat, decide, and buy in one connected experience.
How payment works in AI shoping?
As AI-powered commerce grows, trust and security remain essential. A simple way to think about agentic commerce payments is this:
In agentic commerce*, the AI agent acts like the cashier, while payment processors and merchants continue managing the secure payment infrastructure behind the scenes.
*In many cases, actual card numbers are not shared directly. Instead, secure tokenized payments, digital stand-ins for card information, help protect customer data during transactions.
Is agentic commerce safe?
Shopping with AI agents is designed to be as safe as shopping online or in stores today. Secure payment processing, tokenization, trusted merchant integrations, and evolving AI commerce standards all play a role in helping protect consumers and build trust in AI-powered shopping experiences.
Why Agentic Commerce Matters Right Now
"Agentic commerce is coming fast. Just as early leaders in e-commerce reshaped entire industries, the brands that lean in now will set the pace for the years ahead," ~Mike Storiale, SVP Innovation, Payments, and AI
Consumers are increasingly using generative AI for search, product discovery, and shopping recommendations. That behavior is quickly reshaping digital commerce. A recent Synchrony study found that:
The broader AI commerce market is also accelerating:
As shopping shifts from search bars to conversations, companies are preparing for a future where AI-assisted purchasing becomes part of everyday commerce.
How Is Synchrony Using Agentic Commerce?
Synchrony is already working with trusted retail, platform, and technology partners to enable AI-assisted shopping and payments. Across discovery, financing, and checkout experiences, Synchrony is helping consumers:
At the same time, Synchrony is collaborating with partners, AI companies, and industry groups to help shape the standards, integrations, and security expectations for agent-based payments and AI commerce. Security and trust remain central as Synchrony continues investing in AI-powered commerce experiences.
Synchrony’s Core Pillars to Lead with Agentic Commerce
Agentic commerce is reshaping the shopping journey around three core behaviors:
Synchrony’s strategy aligns directly to this conversational commerce model.
The company is focused on helping consumers discover financing options within AI experiences, making financing information easier to access during decision-making moments, and ensuring payment and private label products work seamlessly within emerging AI-powered checkout systems.
Discovery is becoming one of the most important parts of AI-powered commerce. As more consumers use generative AI tools for search and shopping recommendations, Synchrony is investing in Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) to help make Synchrony and partner financing offers more discoverable inside AI-led search experiences.
This builds on Synchrony’s existing expertise across:
Synchrony has already been testing GenAI-enabled discovery experiences through Synchrony Marketplace and other AI-powered search experiences designed to help shoppers connect with merchants and financing solutions more easily.
Because shopping increasingly starts with a question, Synchrony is focused on helping ensure the answers and financing options are there when consumers need them.
The final part of the strategy is making sure customers can still easily access Synchrony financing options as the shopping experience changes.
As more people use AI tools, apps, and digital payment experiences to shop, Synchrony is paying attention to how these new experiences are evolving, and how financing (with us and our retail partners) can fit into them naturally and safely.
This includes exploring ways customers can view financing options, payment choices, or special offers directly within AI-assisted shopping and checkout experiences.
The goal is to make financing information simple, secure, and easy to access wherever customers choose to shop.
The path forward
"As shopping shifts from search bars to conversations, our job is to make sure our partners’ offers are visible in those moments—while keeping financing simple, secure, and easy to use," ~Rachel Moore, SVP Incubation and Emerging Payments
Agentic commerce is quickly becoming a new front door to shopping.
Consumers are increasingly turning to AI-powered experiences for discovery, recommendations, and purchasing decisions. In response, Synchrony is investing in the partnerships, integrations, payment experiences, and AI-enabled discovery tools needed to support this shift in digital commerce.
By helping shape AI commerce standards, investing in conversational shopping experiences, and enabling financing within AI-powered ecosystems, Synchrony is positioning itself to support merchants and consumers as shopping continues to evolve.
The future of commerce may start with a conversation, but it should still end with confidence. Together with our partners, Synchrony is leading the way.