Who Will Your AI Agent Work For When Everyone Wants The Sale?

Rishi Katdare, Senior Leader in Networking and Edge for Global Financial Services at Amazon Web Services.

​A customer authorizes an AI agent to buy from your business, but you decline the agent’s access. You still want the sale. What you may not accept is a transaction that bypasses the advertising and direct interaction on which your business also depends.

That conflict sits at the center of agentic commerce, where software compares offers and takes commercial action on someone else’s behalf. The buyer’s instruction establishes what the agent should accomplish. It does not settle the terms on which sellers will participate or how the agent’s operator will earn its return.

As customers delegate more of the buying decision, agent operators could gain influence over which businesses get considered. A company might continue serving the customer while becoming dependent on someone else for the opportunity to do so.

Delegating the comparison changes the decision.

Intermediaries have always influenced distribution. An AI agent extends that influence into judgment the customer previously exercised. Instead of examining results, the customer can ask the agent to resolve trade-offs and return with a recommendation or completed purchase.

An agent could recognize that flexible terms matter more than a small discount or ask a question that changes the buyer’s priorities. A business with a better offering could benefit from that richer comparison, particularly when its advantages are difficult to convey through a price ranking.

But the customer delegates precisely because conducting the comparison takes effort. They may be less likely to notice that an offer was excluded, a seller was inaccessible or a purchase could only be completed outside the agent’s service.

This is where convenience can alter the balance of power. The customer saves time by accepting the agent’s judgment, while the operator gains influence over which businesses receive that customer’s attention.