From Circulars to Shopping Agents

Marketecture's Jackelyn Keller traces the arc of shopping from the Sunday circular to the autonomous agent, and argues the ad format is changing with it. A June 2026 PwC study found 73% of parents plan to use AI somewhere in this year's back-to-school shopping journey, from research to budgeting to deals. But the trust line is still human: Gartner found only 11% of U.S. consumers are ready to let AI actually make purchase decisions on their behalf. "We watch agents researching products, comparing options, putting the right item in the cart, then handing off to a human who swoops in and completes the purchase," said Becky Gundy, head of global marketing at CHEQ. "That handoff is getting more and more common, but it's also temporary. Soon agents will be able to buy on your behalf, start to finish." Advertible chief executive Priti Ohri makes the creative point: "For years, data determined who saw an ad. Today, it helps shape the creative itself."

The crux

The moment the buyer stops being a person and becomes an agent, the ad unit's job shifts from persuading a human to being selected by an algorithm, and the brands and publishers that structure their data for machine readability will capture the value that banner advertising can no longer reach.

Sell-side read

Publisher commerce content, product feeds and structured data become ranking inputs for agents, so publishers that invest in clean, machine-readable catalogs and trustworthy reviews will monetize a discovery surface that is emerging before measurement catches up.

Watch

Criteo's Prompt Smart Ads and similar prompt-level ad units, and whether a Shopping Bot Optimization standardizes the way agentic commerce surfaces brand and publisher content.