Beyond chatbots: Retail AI agents are the future of shopping

Reactive AI chatbots were the start, proactive AI agents are the future

Not long ago, generative AI chatbots were the great hope of customer service automation. Retailers rushed to deploy them, eager to combine the speed and scalability of traditional scripted chatbots with the natural, human-like conversations promised by generative AI. And for a while, it looked promising. In fact, among business leaders, generative AI adoption jumped from 55% to 75% in 2024.

These new AI chatbots excelled at answering common questions 24/7, dramatically reducing support volume and cutting wait times. Customers loved getting instant responses instead of sitting through soul-crushing hold music. No more pressing “0” repeatedly to reach a human. However, some chatbot limitations became impossible to ignore.

AI chatbots, for all their generative brilliance, have no real-world awareness—which significantly limits their functional intelligence. While they can tell you a store’s return policy, they can’t process a return. They can offer a discount code, but they can’t personalize the offer based on real-time context like customer behavior, competitor pricing, or a customer’s loyalty status. And sometimes, they hallucinate, posting falsehoods as truth, once even accidentally selling a $40,000 car for $1.

Constrained by their limited scope of information, chatbots quickly proved that conversational AI alone wasn’t enough. What customers and businesses needed wasn’t just chat and certainly not chat salad—it was intelligent action based on real-time context. This is where AI agents come in. These proactive, decision-making entities take customer service to the next level, leaving retailers who stop at chatbots behind as the future moves toward agentic commerce.

AI agents for retail: More than just conversations

So what are AI agents for retail, anyway?

AI agents for retail are software applications powered by artificial intelligence (AI) built to automate tasks and enhance customer interactions for retail businesses. AI agents can be customized to serve various functions, from acting as virtual assistants to personalizing shopping experiences to recommending products to optimizing retail operations, all without human intervention.

Unlike generative AI chatbots, AI agents for retail are fully autonomous problem solvers, capable of making real-time decisions, using real-time data and tools, and executing multi-step tasks from start to finish.

The difference is fundamental. Generative AI chatbots can only provide information when prompted by users, while AI agents proactively take action toward the goals set for them, resolving complex tasks entirely.

Because AI agents can get things done all by themself, and even collaborate with other AI agents to handle more complex tasks, they can help retailers with:

• Solving delivery delays

Consider a typical customer service request. A chatbot might say: “I see your package is delayed. Would you like me to transfer you to a human agent?“

If the customer wants, an AI agent can improve the delivery time without human assistance. Because the agent is connected to backend systems and uses APIs, it can verify the inventory in real time, reroute the order to a closer fulfillment center, and apply a shipping discount for the inconvenience—all automatically.

• Handling returns, refunds, and order changes

AI agents can enhance the experience and efficiency of returns, refunds, and complex order modifications. For example, a chatbot will tell you the return deadline has passed, but an AI agent analyzes sentiments and consults the purchase history and the customer’s loyalty status. With this context, the agent decides whether an exception can be made based on the company guidelines and business goals. If so, it processes the return instantly to make the customer happy.

• Solving complex problems

Enterprise AI agents can break complex tasks into a sequence of smaller, manageable subtasks, enabling them to tackle customer service queries that are too complex for chatbots. Agents can also work in teams and collaborate in a multi-agent configuration. Imagine a sales agent interacting with a logistics agent and a pricing agent, each contributing with their expertise to resolve a customer issue. More on the agent-to-agent (A2A) economy in his article.

AI customer support, anytime, anywhere

Retailers have spent years chasing the dream of a true omnichannel experience—one where customers can seamlessly switch between a website, mobile app, text messages, and in-store interactions without losing context. 

The reality for retail customer support is that the experience is still not fully automated. When support conversations shift between human agents and channels, there’s a frustrating pause—a break in the flow—while human agents scramble to catch up. 

AI agents fix this. Here's how:

• Seamless channel switching

AI agents can maintain context between conversations across channels. This way, if a customer moves from web chat to WhatsApp to SMS, the conversation picks up exactly where it left off—no repeating, no friction.

Even better, if a customer is driving and can’t text, the AI agent can switch to voice for a hands-free experience.

• Personalized, proactive, scalable engagement

Say a high-value customer abandons their cart. The AI agent can engage via WhatsApp with a personalized offer to nudge that individual back to complete the purchase. The beauty of AI agents is that your backend can deploy them at scale, responding in realtime to customer behavior. Think of it as high-touch, event-driven marketing.

• Guiding customers to the best channel

AI agents can also steer conversations to the most cost-effective and efficient channel. If a customer is already active in an app, the AI agent keeps them there. If needed, it can proactively guide the interaction back into the app, where messaging is branded and secure, and insights are owned. Indeed, in-app messaging provides richer insights—unlike opaque, data-limited channels like SMS—allowing for deeper personalization and more thoughtful engagement.

Beyond creating new efficiencies, AI agents act as the bridge between otherwise disjointed enterprise systems and channels, making the omnichannel customer experience an operational reality. They enable a seamless customer experience that translates to greater customer loyalty and turns support into a strategic revenue-generating advantage.

Agentic AI for retail: The nuts and bolts for retailers’ success

For all their benefits, AI agents aren’t just ‘set it’ and ‘forget it’ tools—they require thoughtful deployment, training, and continuous feedback to deliver the best business impact. For retailers to maximize their potential, they must consider these three components:

• The AI agent engine for creation, testing, and continuous learning

• Enterprise-grade infrastructure for security, scalability, and compliance

• Strategic partnerships to guide implementation and optimization.

The AI agent engine: Create, tool-up, train, test, and optimize

An AI agent engine or builder must let businesses

1. Define the functionality and personality of their agents.

2. Seamlessly connect AI agents to backend tools for context

3. Integrate with support platforms like Salesforce, Zendesk, or Intercom for human collaboration.

4. Simplify agents’ training on industry knowledge, policies, and standard operating procedures (SOPs)

5. Enforce clear AI guardrails to prevent mistakes.

6. Ensure AI transparency so that Agents’ decisions are explainable and compliant with regulations.

7. Before launch, retailers must use real-world customer scenarios, with their partner's assistance, to sharpen responses and catch mistakes early.

8. And once live? AI copilots, human oversight, and performance tracking ensure that retail AI agents keep getting better. As their performance and scope increase, they can evolve into an autonomous AI workforce that will replace chatbots for good.

AI agent rails: The enterprise-grade foundation

For AI agents to perform at scale, they must be built on a foundation of secure, high-performance infrastructure that supports millions of interactions without friction. Retail businesses need to consider building AI agents on top of:

• A global messaging network that seamlessly connects in-app messaging, SMS, WhatsApp, and email—without lag, lost conversations, or frustrating disconnects.

• Enterprise-grade security & compliance with HIPAA, SOC 2, and GDPR—essential for protecting customer data and maintaining trust.

• AI transparency for businesses to audit AI decisions, refine agent behaviors, and guarantee control over fully automated processes. AI agents can’t be black boxes, they must be tools that work with clear and explainable boundaries.

Even the most advanced and well-designed AI agents will struggle to deliver high-quality support without a compliant and scalable foundation.

Choosing the right AI agent platform and partner

AI agents are only as effective as the strategy behind their deployment. Retailers need:

• Dedicated AI experts to guide the training, testing, and optimization of AI agents.

• Omnichannel communication expertise to ensure AI agents deliver seamless text, voice, and video interactions across any channel.

• Ongoing AI capabilities development to keep up with the rapid AI, communication, and market evolution.

Retailers that treat AI agents as a one-time setup will fall behind. Those that continuously refine and optimize their AI workforce will turn AI into a competitive advantage.

AI agents are redefining retail customer support—are you ready?

If AI chatbots did improve customer support, AI agents are revolutionizing it. 🚀 The shift from conversational AI to AI reasoning and AI action is reshaping customer support as we know it, driving further efficiency, customer loyalty, and revenue.

Retailers who embrace AI agents for customer service now, will lead the next era of customer experience. More than 80% of organizations are already investing in GenAI or expect to do so in the coming months.

With an omnichannel AI agent platform, a proven enterprise infrastructure, and readily available integrations to the most popular support software, Sendbird is uniquely positioned to help retailers capitalize on the AI customer service revolution.

👉 Learn more about how Sendbird powers your enterprise AI agents today at www.sendbird.com.