In 2016 PII's founder, Frode Odegard, gave his first conference talk on what happens to orchestration, product selection, and brands when AI agents act on behalf of people and organizations. A decade later that is becoming reality. This program charts the industry standards and platforms now emerging for AI agents and assesses their strategic impact across commerce, product visibility, orchestration, brands, and supply chains.
Industry discussion currently treats three topics separately: AI agents in online commerce, answer-engine optimization for product visibility, and AI in supply-chain management. We regard them as interconnected parts of a single emerging agent economy, and study them as such.
Emerging standards and protocols for agent-to-agent and agent-to-business interaction
Platforms and intermediaries in agent-mediated commerce
Product visibility and selection when the buyer is an agent
The future of brands in an agent economy
Agent-driven orchestration of supply chains
Strategic implications for firms, industries, and investors
In this project we aim to provide an updated guide to existing standards for AI agents engaged in supply chain management or B2C commerce. We also seek to gain a better understanding of what infrastructure and standards are still missing and how progress can be made.