Local Agentic Commerce, AI Ads, Google Antitrust Appeal, Gemini Catches Up

Local 'Agentic Commerce'

In the wake of Google's recent agentic announcements, people are spinning out grand (or dystopian) visions of an "agentic future" where human involvement in online research and transactions is substantially eliminated. And while marketers need to understand and prepare for these technologies (e.g., UCP, ACP), user behavior may take much longer to change. I'm happy to let AI do a bunch of tedious research. But when it comes to buying decisions, I'm unlikely to turn that over to a machine, however personalized. I might allow an AI agent to identify flight options to New York, or the best-rated portable iPhone chargers, or hotels in a neighborhood in a defined price range. But I'm much less inclined to let AI ultimately choose or pay for things, except in low-risk scenarios (e.g., reordering past purchases). Predictions about transactional autonomy are way premature. Local is a category, however, where agentic AI could take off relatively quickly. It will likely revolve around booking and scheduling. The AI Mode page below shows available restaurant reservations. That's the model. And it could extend to any merchant with time-based inventory, i.e., service businesses. Scheduling estimates and emergencies are well suited to agentic AI usage. Yet many variables (e.g., category, cost, complexity) will affect trust and adoption. Agents will undoubtedly compress and further disrupt the funnel, but people will still want to be involved at critical decision points. The "set it and forget it" process being described by agent-boosters is still a long way away, if it ever arrives.