A customer arrives on your website, asks a question, checks availability, changes an order, and completes a purchase.
This seems to be a completely standard e-commerce interaction, except the customer may never have visited.... their AI agent did.
That possibility is moving quickly from a future-facing thought experiment into product roadmaps, technical standards, and customer engagement strategy.
Businesses have spent years refining digital journeys for people. Now, they must prepare for software acting on a person’s behalf, as Kevin Miller, Head of Payments at Stripe, explained:
“A customer relationship doesn’t start or end at checkout. When customers send an agent, they expect the same service they’d get themselves.”
That is the central challenge for this week’s customer engagement news. AI agents may remove steps from a journey, but they also introduce new questions around identity, authorization, data access, and who gets to shape the experience.
Editor’s Pick: Building Rules for the Agent-to-Business Journey
Meta and Sierra have announced the Personal Agent Protocol, an open standard developed with partners including Genesys, Instinct, Rocket, Shopify, Stripe, and Walmart.
The protocol aims to give companies a clearer way to recognize when an AI agent is acting on behalf of a customer and define what that agent can do.
It covers authentication, visibility, and consent, with customers deciding whether an agent receives read-only or write access.
That is important because personal agents are increasingly expected to handle everyday tasks, from booking flights and scheduling appointments to making purchases and managing returns.
Today, many agents attempt these tasks by navigating a company website as a person would. That is slow, unreliable, and leaves brands uncertain whether the traffic comes from a legitimate customer representative or an unauthorized bot.
Sierra’s proposal gives businesses several options. They can allow agents to use their website, connect through APIs, or hand work off to a company-owned agent for more complex interactions.
The protocol is still in the early stages, with Sierra planning to publish its v0.1 specification later this month. Yet it is a meaningful sign that the conversation is moving beyond agent demos and into the rules that will govern agent-led customer journeys.
The crucial principle is that customers remain in control. If that gets lost, the protocol risks becoming another layer that gives platforms and brands more visibility while leaving consumers with less.
Adobe Takes Agentic AI to Heathrow’s Passenger Journey
Adobe has expanded its partnership with Heathrow Airport to transform the digital experience for millions of passengers using AI and customer experience technology.
Heathrow’s partnership with Adobe is intended to bring more personalized digital experiences to a journey that begins well before the airport and continues after landing. That makes it a stronger test of AI-powered orchestration than many retail examples.
