Are apps the antidote to agentic commerce?

Are apps the antidote to agentic commerce?

Agentic commerce is making buying invisible. As AI agents select, compare and purchase on behalf of consumers, transactions are becoming increasingly abstracted from brands. In that world, an owned app is one of the few remaining spaces where brands still own a direct relationship with customers.

Commerce is already complicated. The agentic era is going to make it even harder to retain valuable customers and optimise share of wallet. As AI systems mediate discovery and decision-making, brands risk becoming interchangeable suppliers in a process they no longer control.

Agentic commerce is accelerating abstraction. Google pulling products straight into search journeys, marketplaces mediating discovery, and AI agents optimising purchases mean brands are losing direct visibility and influence across the customer journey. Early data suggests meaningful shifts in behaviour, with AI-driven interactions already shaping a growing share of commerce decisions. Customers are still buying, but brands are increasingly disconnected from how and why those decisions are made.

Everyone is becoming an intermediary. Platforms, marketplaces and AI models are inserting themselves between brands and customers, each layer optimising for convenience, price or speed. The result is a fragmented commerce stack where loyalty shifts away from brands and towards systems that promise frictionless outcomes. Brands are no longer competing only with other brands. They are competing with algorithms.

In this environment, the app becomes the antidote to abstraction. It is one of the few environments where brands can still deliver a direct, personalised experience without relying on third-party algorithms. It becomes a controlled space for identity, data, loyalty and storytelling. Rather than being just another channel, the app becomes the connective tissue between brand and customer.

In the traditional model, brands pay to win back customers who already know them, often losing visibility to competitors along the way. They rent attention through platforms and search engines, only to fight for it again at the next interaction. In the agentic model, AI tools increasingly control discovery and purchasing, reducing brands’ influence and direct relationships even further. A strong app restores that connection. It gives brands control, loyalty and a larger share of customer spend.

The contrast is stark. In the known world, brands rely on Google and platforms to reach customers, then pay repeatedly to re-acquire their own audience. In the app advantage model, brands maximise share of wallet and own an end-to-end relationship. They move from dependency to ownership, from rented visibility to direct engagement.

Forward-looking retailers are already rebuilding apps as loyalty engines rather than transactional tools. They are integrating rewards, subscriptions, community, content and personalised journeys into a single ecosystem. The app becomes a living environment rather than a checkout funnel. It is where brands can deepen relationships, experiment with value and create experiences that extend beyond individual purchases.

Rising acquisition costs make ownership non-negotiable. As paid media becomes more expensive and less predictable, the economic logic shifts. Retaining and deepening relationships through owned channels becomes cheaper and strategically safer than constantly reacquiring customers via platforms. Brands are forced to confront an uncomfortable reality. Growth built on intermediaries is fragile.

A well-designed app connects the commerce stack. It drives more direct revenue, higher lifetime value, higher average order value and stronger conversion. It enhances loyalty, engagement and brand experience while creating resilience against external shocks from platforms and AI intermediaries. In practical terms, it allows brands to move from reacting to algorithms to shaping their own ecosystems.

The data already points in this direction. Ecommerce app sessions grew 13% year-on-year while visits to shopping websites fell 1%, signalling a shift towards more controlled, personalised environments. Visits referred by ChatGPT convert at 11.4%, more than double organic search at 5.3%, highlighting how AI-driven journeys can be both powerful and opaque. Social commerce is accelerating too, with 21% of global shoppers and more than 25% of UK consumers buying directly through social platforms. Discovery is dispersing, journeys are compressing, and brand control is eroding.

At the same time, brands have never been this disconnected from their customers. When AI agents increasingly control discovery and purchase, the question becomes unavoidable. What assets do brands actually own?

Websites are mediated by search engines. Marketplaces control distribution. Social platforms control reach. Paid media controls attention at a cost. For many brands, the app may be the last meaningful point of leverage. It is where brands can convert loyal customers into app shoppers, own the end-to-end experience and maximise long-term value.

Agentic commerce does not eliminate brands. It reshapes the terrain on which brands compete. Ownership, once a technical detail, becomes a strategic imperative. In a world where buying is becoming invisible, the app is not just another digital channel. It is infrastructure for relevance, resilience and relationship.

If AI increasingly decides what people buy, when they buy and from whom they buy, then the brands that survive will be those that still have somewhere to meet their customers directly. For many, the app will not just be an advantage. It will be the last place where brands still matter.

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