For brands and retailers, success is not just about creating assortments or managing seasonal demand. It’s about making the right decisions quickly and consistently in all increasingly difficult tasks. In this situation, the ability to step back, prioritize, and act with precision has become a key differentiator.
In 2025, one theme always shaped these strategic discussions: AI Agent. According to Gartner, inquiries related to AI agents will increase more than 750% by 2024, and by 2029, half of daily work decisions are expected to be made autonomously by AI agents, up from just 20% today.
In addition, Gartner also says that Agentic AI represents “the next evolution of AI maturity,” moving from automation to autonomous, results-driven operations.
Agent AI in sales it becomes a self-learning decision layer that resides across the entire supply chain, sales, pricing, ops, and customer experience (CX).
However, the real desire is no longer whether agent AI will transform sales, but how salespeople can use it for tangible benefits, turning intelligence into faster decisions, greater agility, and measurable impact across the organization. Let’s dive in.
Embracing change: Top Agetic Ai uses store cases to get ahead of the agent AI curve
Did you know that 77% of global retailers now believe that decision-making autonomy will be the biggest difference in retail performance in the next five years. So, with that in mind, let’s take a look top AI use cases in the retail industry products to focus on in 2026.
#1 Hyper personal shopping, at agent speed
Personalization in 2026 goes beyond product recommendations or separate campaigns. Agent AI in sales it enables individual customer agents that learn preferences, context, intent, and timing in real time.
These agents curate assortments, content, offers, and channels tailored to each consumer—across the app, the web, the store, and even through voice commands. Instead of just waiting for the customer to browse or search, the agent takes the initiative to guide the shopping experience, predicting needs and guiding decisions at the right time.
Impact:
Increased basket size, higher conversion rates, and deeper loyalty—without the stress of manual campaign planning.
#2 Strong values that think and respond automatically
With shelves full of so many products, choosing the right price is never easy. How will consumers know if they are getting a better deal or not? Indeed, Agentic AI systems are a solution to simplify the process of personalized promotion and pricing. With effective customer segmentation, you can use our RGM suite with agent capabilities:
- Promotional planning – Analyze price elasticity and competitor actions to eliminate overly aggressive discounts and improve promotional impact.
- Personal price – Offer loyal customers discounts on their purchases or tailor promotional prices for new customers.
- Price Optimization – Use the Guardrail to prevent price gouging, price cuts, or competitive stagnation while maintaining a high profit margin.
Impact:
Faster response to market fluctuations, improved margins, and less revenue leakage caused by delayed decisions.
#3 Predictive, self-correcting inventory management
Inventory has always been one of marketing’s most challenging issues—and one of its largest cost centers. With Agentic AI in place, retailers can embed creative agents that detect risk early, predict demand, and operate autonomously throughout the supply chain.
These agents constantly rebalance stock across locations, adjust replenishment routes, trigger replenishments, and even renegotiate with suppliers in real time. When demand changes unexpectedly, the system adapts—without waiting for human intervention.
Impact:
Lower handling costs, more stock reductions and out-of-stocks, and higher shelf availability.
#4 End-to-end customer support that solves, not escalates
Think about it Agent AI in the retail industry this way- They are the first responders to customer questions across chat, emails, and social media—automating day-to-day support tasks like order status updates, FAQ fixes, and returns. By embedding sentiment and context indicators as CRM data, customer service agents can escalate challenging issues to human agents and personalize interactions when needed.
Striking the right balance between answering questions quickly with AI and human intervention is key. Walmart is leading the way in this area, highlighting its commitment to using agents to quickly improve service response, route questions, automate “routines,” and deploy humans when needed to handle complex issues.
Impact:
Faster turnaround times, lower support costs, and a measurable boost in customer satisfaction.
#5 Machine-to-machine trading
Another strange change coming your way is the emergence of machine-to-machine trading. Consumer AI agents, representing consumers, will interact directly with sellers and product agents.
These agents take care of negotiating prices, comparing different options, managing subscriptions, checking availability, and buying automatically, based on user-defined preferences. Marketers with agent-friendly programs will win these negotiations—not by spending marketing money, but by making smarter, faster decisions.
Impact:
High repeat purchases, hassle-free purchases, and strong long-term loyalty.
#6 Effective decision making in all sales activities
At the business level, Agent AI in sales it becomes the decision orchestration layer. Agents across pricing, sales, supply chain, marketing, and CX collaborate continuously to resolve transactions in real time.
Instead of managers responding to a dashboard, agents take action, make decisions, and bring people into the loop when needed. This approach creates a retail business that is constantly learning, adapts quickly, and works with resilience.
Impact:
Better cross-functional alignment, improved agility, and analytical efficiency.
The conclusion
What you’ve just gone through is more than a change in the technology landscape; it is a fundamental rethinking of how these areas affect the retail environment.
In Polestar Analyticswe help retailers make that change a reality. We combine Agentic AI strategies, systems, and expertise to create smarter operations that unlock measurable, lasting profits. Contact us today.
