Circa 2027. You want to buy a new pair of running shoes, so you pick up your phone and start browsing the web. Scratch that. You pick up your phone and simply tell your agentic AI app to buy you the most recommended pair for, say, 6-foot male, 84 kilos and wide-footed. Your AI agent then does the job of identifying the best pair, negotiating with the sellers and finally ordering it. The footwear brands have zero access to you as the consumer. Instead, their own AI agents are out there selling to your AI agent.

So, all of a sudden, you’ve gone from B2C to A2A: AI agent to AI agent. The prized marketing funnel of the marketer that captures the customer journey from awareness to purchase (and beyond) is no longer relevant. The award-winning ads churned out by some creative genius at the end of hundreds of cigarettes and coffee cups, perhaps, no longer needed. Indeed, the holy grail of marketing—the everlasting brand—may itself be facing an existential crisis. All of these complex ingredients that go into selling will be replaced by cold data and the uncompromising logic of AI agents.

If this sounds too futuristic, think again. Late last year, Perplexity launched Buy With Pro, an agentic tool that integrates into its AI search........

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