The Asia Pacific region is set to drive the agentic future of commerce, according to a recent study by Deloitte.
The report, titled The future of commerce: Agentic shopping in Asia Pacific, reveals that while 29% are adopting agentic AI today, this is expected to surge to 76% within two years.
Deloitte says more than half of the region’s consumer businesses now have live AI implementations across IT, cybersecurity, marketing, sales and customer support, and around one-third are already using AI to transform their business models, attributing to how digitally fluent customers and advanced commercial ecosystems put Asia Pacific businesses in a strong position to lead the development of agentic commerce.
The report also finds that despite rising investment, only around 30% of Asia Pacific consumer businesses report that at least 40% or more of their AI initiatives reach production with implementation challenges among the top barriers.
Further, Deloitte’s report identifies six agentic AI trends reshaping retail in Asia Pacific:
- Hyper-personal engagement: Retailers are using AI agents to connect signals from digital touchpoints, voice interactions and in-store sensors, enabling more relevant recommendations and tailored offers.
- Agentic stores – intelligence enters physical retail: Physical stores in markets such as China, Singapore and India are already evolving beyond transactional spaces into environments where intelligence is embedded directly into the shopping experience connecting digital engagement, in-store experience, and the full retail supply chain into a unified, responsive whole.
- Agentic operations: Leading Asia-Pacific omnichannel retailers are deploying specialised AI agents across their operations, including forecasting, inventory, pricing, fulfilment and customer services, signaling a shift from supporting work to actively shaping how work flows across the enterprise.
- Shopping agents – the new agentic customer: Shopping agents or ‘shopping bots’ are emerging as one of the most visible expressions of agentic commerce as consumers use AI to search, compare and evaluate options, and, in some cases, to complete purchases on their behalf.
