The Agentic Commerce Funnel
Premium Analysis
Before diving into the mechanics of the agentic funnel, let’s be clear about what this analysis is and isn’t claiming.
The transactional funnel collapses. The brand funnel does not disappear; it transforms.
When an AI recommends Salomon over a generic hiking boot brand, that recommendation isn’t random; it’s reading decades of accumulated brand equity expressed through reviews, expert citations, consumer sentiment, and third-party validation.
Traditional awareness campaigns built mental availability, the probability that a consumer thinks of your brand when a need arises.
In the agentic era, that mental availability shifts: the brand must be available not just in the consumer’s mind, but in the AI’s reasoning.
The content, reputation, and trust signals that brands build become the inputs the AI evaluates when deciding what to recommend:
Reviews and ratings → Shape AI confidence scores
Expert citations → Build entity authority in AI training data
Consumer sentiment → Influence AI trust signals
Third-party validation → Determine whether AI considers you credible
When we say “the funnel collapses,” we mean the commerce journey, from discovery to transaction, compresses into a single moment.
But the upstream work of building brand preference, authority, and trust? That work remains essential. It just flows into the AI’s recommendation logic rather than directly into a consumer’s purchase decision.
