Retail’s next big thing: Agentic AI Commerce

Infobip predicts shift from digital adoption to AI-driven autonomous commerce in 2026

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LONDON, 27 November 2025 – The UK retail sector is on the verge of a major transformation as AI evolves from a digital support tool into an agent that actively shapes customer journeys in real time. Leading global communications platform Infobip forecasts that in 2026 “Agentic AI Commerce” will become the new norm for UK retailers, enabling hyper-personalised shopping experiences.


Retail is on the cusp of a dramatic evolution. We’re moving beyond simple digital adoption to a world where AI doesn’t just assist, but actively drives autonomous, real-time customer journeys. From tailored product discovery to frictionless checkout, AI will be the engine powering retail innovation across the country.”

Kim Johal

Retail specialist at Infobip

Key highlights of Infobip’s 2026 retail forecast include:

  1. AI-powered hyper-personalisation: Retailers will leverage behavioural, location, and intent data to deliver truly tailored, dynamic experiences that increase engagement and conversion rates in real-time.
  2. Agentic AI reshaping customer interactions: AI will evolve from passive assistance to proactive engagement, anticipating needs and personalising experiences across all touchpoints.
  3. Rise of Rich Conversational channels: Rich Communication Services (RCS) and WhatsApp will become mainstream platforms for conversational commerce in the UK, offering more visual, interactive, and intelligent brand-customer interactions.
  4. Smarter messaging for smarter devices: With increasing message filtering and summarisation on consumers’ devices, brands must adopt richer, trusted channels to ensure their communications are welcomed and relevant.
  5. Loyalty programs evolution: Traditional loyalty schemes will transform into hyper-personalised, data-driven ecosystems built on first-party and zero-party data, with transparency and trust as key differentiators.
  6. Addressing the high cost of returns: Returns is a high financial and environmental-cost problem for the retail sector, particularly in fashion. AI is set to become pivotal in reducing these costs by anticipating and managing behaviour in buying patterns which lead to high returns. In the pre-sale journey AI can identify multiples in different sizes in baskets, for example, and help customers make a choice based on previous purchases and sizing guides.


Success in this new era will require patience and strategic thinking. UK businesses must focus on packaged AI use cases with clear ROI and ensure their solutions are transparent, compliance ready and build customer trust. Infobip’s expertise in AI-driven communications, positions us as a key partner for retailers aiming to lead in the Agentic AI Commerce revolution.”

Kim Johal

Retail specialist at Infobip

About Infobip

Infobip is a global cloud communications platform that enables businesses to build connected experiences across all stages of the customer journey. Accessed through a single platform, Infobip’s omnichannel engagement, identity, user authentication and contact centre solutions help businesses and partners overcome the complexity of consumer communications to grow business and increase loyalty. It offers natively built technology with the capacity to reach over seven billion mobile devices and ‘things’ in 6 continents connected to over 9,700+ connections of which 800+ are direct operator connections. Infobip was established in 2006 and is led by its co-founders, CEO Silvio Kutić and Izabel Jelenić.

Recent award wins include:

  • Infobip ranked as the number one Established Leader in the Juniper Research Mobile Messaging Fraud Prevention Market report (Sept 2025)
  • Infobip named a Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) for the third consecutive year. In 2025, positioned furthest in Completeness of Vision (July 2025)
  • Infobip named among Top 75 in Fortune’s Europe’s Most Innovative Companies 2025, placing it in the top 25% of all listed organizations (June 2025)
  • Infobip ranked as a Leader in the Omdia CPaaS Universe Report for the third time (April 2025)
  • Infobip ranked an Established Leader in the Juniper Research Conversational AI Leaderboard (Feb 2025)
  • Infobip named a CPaaS Leader for the third time in the IDC MarketScape (Feb 2025)
  • Infobip named one of the top CPaaS providers in Metrigy’s CPaaS MetriRank Report (Dec 2024)
  • Infobip named number one among Established Leaders in RCS Business Messaging in Juniper Research’s RCS Business Messaging Competitor Leaderboard 2024 (Nov 2024)
  • Infobip recognized as the number one provider in the AIT Fraud Prevention market by Juniper Research (Oct 2024)
  • Infobip named to Fast Company’s Annual List of the World’s Most Innovative Companies (March 2024)