Maulik Sailor (00:00.884)
Going time.

Ashish (00:01.308)
going by.

Maulik Sailor (00:04.296)
Okay.

Ashish (00:04.762)
Okay.

Maulik Sailor (00:07.9)
It's SourceMidLive on LinkedIn.

Ashish (00:08.324)
It's source with live on LinkedIn.

Maulik Sailor (00:14.706)
Gotome is running again here.

Ashish (00:15.118)
Got to be zoning again here.

Ashish (00:21.285)
Okay.

Maulik Sailor (00:43.304)
Okay, the event is live on LinkedIn, so that's good.

Ashish (00:43.759)
Okay, the event is live on LinkedIn, so that's good.

Maulik Sailor (00:50.856)
Generally, Riverside is not bad, it's really good, but there's a problem between Riverside and LinkedIn not talking to each other very well. So oftentimes you're not sure whether it will go live on LinkedIn or not. And on YouTube is not a problem. In YouTube, it goes live fairly quickly without any issues and works really well. But on LinkedIn, there's always a glitch. So hopefully, this will work well.

Ashish (00:51.287)
Generally, Riverside is not bad, it's really good. But there's a problem between Riverside and LinkedIn not talking to each other very well. So, often time you're not sure whether it will go live on LinkedIn or not. And on YouTube it's not a problem. YouTube it goes live fairly quickly without any issues and works really well. But on LinkedIn, there's always a glitch.

So hopefully, you know, this would work well. It's streaming live right now, so hopefully that's going to be fine.

Maulik Sailor (01:19.1)
It's showing me live right now, so hopefully that should be fine.

Maulik Sailor (01:26.836)
Yeah, cool. We just wait. Let's audience join. Generally, the audience, know, they don't, not everybody joins on the dot. People join at different times. So we'll continue to our discussion points. And as the questions come in, know, Gautam will keep monitoring that and he will post in the chat over here. So in the website also, there is a chat function.

Ashish (01:27.249)
Cool. We just wait. audience join. the audience, know, they don't, not everybody joins on the dot. People join at different times. So we'll continue to our discussion points. And as the questions come in, you know, Gautam will keep monitoring that and he will post in the chat over here. So in the website also there is a chat function.

Maulik Sailor (01:56.42)
and he'll basically post all the live questions directly over here in the chat. That's what we'll do.

Ashish (01:56.873)
and he'll basically post all the live questions directly over here in the chat. That's what we'll do.

Maulik Sailor (02:30.654)
is the weird silence before it is done.

Ashish (02:31.236)
the weird silence before this dawn.

Ashish (02:37.68)
You have been doing this for a while, Malik? For this InnoViFi series, I just started from the beginning of this year, from January. Before that, I was running a podcast series for a different platform. The focus was different. I was building an agentic platform and agentic, like an engineering management platform. So my talks were mainly focused around that.

Maulik Sailor (02:40.416)
For this InnoViFi series, I just started from the beginning of this year, from January. Before that, I was running a podcast series for a different platform. The focus was different. I was building an agent-based platform and an engineering management platform. So my talk was mainly focused around that. And that's why I was settling between SF and London as well.

Ashish (03:05.328)
And that's why I was settling between SF and London as well. And I found the, like, you know, on that one, I found, I say the problem validated that there is enough problem in the market. What could the solution look like? And whether the solution will be like defensible or not, it's not something that I was like, you know, I got enough convincing answers to that. So I kind of put that on hold and

Maulik Sailor (03:10.944)
I found the, like, you know, on that one, found, I would say the problem validated that there is enough problem in the market, but what could the solution look like and whether the solution will be, um, like defensible or not. It's not something that I was like, you know, I got enough convincing answers to that. So I kind of put that on hold and started focusing back on, you know, if I, and

Ashish (03:35.248)
started focusing back on to notify and all the knowledge and the insight I've built up for the other startup kind of apply to this segment as well that I'm talking about. I thought, you know what, why not just take all those learnings and apply to something that is already up and running instead of trying to build something again from scratch. So that's where I am actually.

Maulik Sailor (03:39.816)
all the knowledge and the insight I've built up for the other startup kind of apply to this segment as well that we are talking about. So thought, you know what, why not just take all those learnings and apply to something that is already up and running instead of trying to build something again from scratch. So that's where I am actually.

Right. We're still experimenting. We're still taking a lot of, you know, solutioning on the other side and trying to apply that internally within our workflows and into, you know, our client delivery. So not everything is lost. It's like we're just building on top of what we initially we are looking more as a self-service SaaS offering, which kind of does not really work. Well, it works, but I think maybe it's not sustainable in a SaaS format.

Ashish (04:04.431)
We're still experimenting. We're still taking a lot of, you know, soliciting on the other side and trying to apply that internally within our workflows and into, you know, our client delivery. So not everything is lost. It's like we're just building on top of what we... Initially we were looking more as a self-service SaaS offering, which kind of does not really work. Well, it works, but I think maybe it's not sustainable in a SaaS format.

Got it. Who are your clients generally? Are they enterprises? Are they small businesses? What's the name? Previously, we have worked with all sorts. We have done early stage startups. We have done enterprise. We have done mid-segment. Our specialism always has been new product innovation.

Maulik Sailor (04:41.023)
Previously, we have worked with all sorts. We have done early-stage startups. We have done Enterprise. had done Midsegment. Our specialism always has been new product innovation. There are fintech startups in London that we worked with them from day zero, building their products and scaling them. One of them is Unicorn now. At the same time, we've done some corporate ventures as well.

Ashish (04:56.471)
you know, startup index are up in London that we work with them from day zero, building their product and scaling them. one of them is unicorn now. at the same time we done some corporate ventures as well, in the enterprise scale. So, you know, mixed bag and

Maulik Sailor (05:10.079)
in the enterprise scale. So, know, mixed back. But with now, the focus is very clear. We want to play within exactly what we're going to talk about, the intersection of fintech, e-commerce and AI. That's where we are playing right now. And that's where we want to focus.

Ashish (05:16.527)
But with now the focus is very clear. We want to play within exactly what we're going to talk about the intersection of FinTech, E-commerce and AI. That's what we are playing right now. And that's what we want to focus. Okay, that's good. All right, good. I think we are good on time. Let's kick off our podcast. And, you know, we have plenty of RSVPs today.

Maulik Sailor (05:30.013)
All right, cool. I think we are good on time. Let's kick off our podcast. And, you know, we have plenty of RSVPs today. So I'm hoping that this session will, it is actually one of our most popular, most RSVP ever that we have received on this series of podcasts, as well as compared to the previous one. So really excited about today.

Ashish (05:41.653)
So I'm hoping that this session will, it is actually one of our most popular, most RSVP ever that we have received on this series of podcasts as well as compared to the previous one. So really excited about today. Anyways, for folks who are joining us online today, welcome back to Get Future Ready podcast.

Maulik Sailor (05:58.752)
Anyways, for folks who are joining us online today, welcome back to Get Future Ready podcast, where we cut through the noise and get into the real hands-on decisions that senior leaders at retail and e-commerce businesses need to make now, not in five years time. I'm your host, Malik Sailor and I'm founder of Innoify, a specialist venture studio focusing on the intersection of fintech, e-commerce, and AI to build a commercial infrastructure for tomorrow.

Ashish (06:21.231)
to the focusing on the intersection of FinTech e-commerce and AI to build the commercial infrastructure for tomorrow for companies across the UK and US. If you're joining us today for the first time, that's great, but I just want to iterate that this is part three of two previous podcasts we did on the same topic about agentic commerce and agentic payments.

Maulik Sailor (06:29.395)
for companies across the UK and US. If you're joining us today for the first time, that's great. But I just want to iterate that this is part three of two previous podcasts we did on the same topic about agentic commerce and agentic payments. And if you haven't listened to those parts, then just go to our online channels like YouTube or Spotify or even on LinkedIn Live.

Ashish (06:49.966)
And if you haven't listened to those parts, then just go to our online channels like YouTube or Spotify or even on LinkedIn Live and just search for Future Ready Podcasts with Innoify and you'll be able to find those. And we had plenty of insights on those two podcasts and we're going to continue with our...

Maulik Sailor (06:59.447)
and just search for future ready podcasts with Innoify and you'll be able to find those. And we had plenty of insights on those two podcasts and we're going to continue with our conversation today with slightly different take and slightly different panel as well today. So we'll cover quite a few points where we left the previous one.

Ashish (07:21.528)
We'll cover quite a few points where we left the previous one. And this is going to be the last one in the series. So we will leave with few insights or tips on where the leaders needs to focus if they are tackling the agent commerce phase. But before I go into more details, let me first introduce our panelists today.

Maulik Sailor (07:26.889)
This is going to be the last one in the series. So we will leave with a few insights or tips on where the leaders needs to focus if they are tackling the agentic commerce phase. But before I go into more details, let me first introduce our panelists today. Let's start with the familiar face. Parvez, again, would be great if you can introduce yourself, what our audience have listened to you before.

Ashish (07:48.334)
Let's start with the familiar face, know, Parviz. Again, would be great if you can introduce yourself, you know, what our audience have listened to you before, so why don't you start with your familiar intro? Of course. So let me set the frame for this episode. I spent nearly two decades at Visa watching every big shift in payments, so from cash to card, from click to tap.

Maulik Sailor (07:56.916)
why don't you start with your familiar intro.

Parvez Hussain (08:00.174)
Of course. So let me set the frame for this episode. I spent nearly two decades at Visa watching every big shift in payments. So from cash to card, from click to tap, and every time the goal was the same to remove friction from human in the loop. And now the human is leaving the loop and that's changing everything. So the shift impacts the customer, the merchant, the bank.

Ashish (08:15.475)
And every time the goal was the same to remove friction from a human in the loop. And now the human is leaving the loop and that's changing everything. So the shift impacts the customer, the merchant, the bank. And that's what's fascinating me in terms of the intersection at the moment.

Parvez Hussain (08:29.58)
And that's what's fascinating me in terms of the intersection at the moment.

Maulik Sailor (08:35.507)
That's great, Parvez Ashish you are new today. Welcome to this podcast series. You had amazing career at some of the leading e-commerce platforms, and now You are running your own startup within an agentic commerce space. Why don't you introduce yourself, talk about your background and what you're focusing on now.

Ashish (08:35.825)
That's great. Pervez, know, us is you are new today. You know, welcome to this podcast series. You know, you had amazing career at some of the leading e-commerce platforms and now we are running your own startup within an agent e-commerce space. Why don't you introduce yourself, talk about your background and what you're focusing on now. Okay, thanks, Malik.

So I'll also set up a frame. So I started my career with Walmart, like the biggest retailer on earth, right? &

My journey has been in commerce, from commerce in retail shelves in Walmart to Flipkart which is e-commerce, like a biggest e-commerce giant out of India. Then I moved to Lazada, this is pre-Ali Baba days, it eventually got bought by Alibaba, so I was a bit in Honjo as well. And then I moved to Grab, which is like instant commerce. So only made sense to move from commerce to...

e-commerce, instant commerce to do something in agentic commerce. So now I'm building Airshelf where we help enterprises become agentic commerce ready. And along with that, we do a lot of like orchestration as well within the commerce space using the agents that we build. Okay, great. You know, wonderful to have you both again today. Like again, part with you and you know, first time with us is.

Maulik Sailor (09:54.42)
Okay, great. you know, wonderful to have you both again today, like again, Parvez you and you know, first time with Ashish Let me just quickly recap on what we discussed in our previous two episodes. We spoke mainly about different kinds of agentic commerce, you know, where agent could be acting on behalf of the user doing exactly what a user would do or an agent acting

Ashish (10:05.46)
Let me just quickly recap on what we discussed in our previous two episodes.

Maulik Sailor (10:23.647)
completely replacing the user and directly interacting with the e-commerce platform, maybe directly with the databases as well. And then a third was and where the agents are buying and selling directly with each other, bypassing the traditional e-commerce platforms. We also spoke about the problem with fraud. How do you really...

know, differentiate between a genuine agentic session versus, you know, a fraudulent session, you know, attacks, know, trust, identity issues in this space. We spoke at length about that. We also spoke about payments, you know, how payments come into play, you know, ultimately the money has to flow. What are different, like what is happening in the current ecosystem? You what are the big players trying to do with Visas and

and master cards of the world, the new protocols here emerging out within this space. We spoke about friction versus frictionless payments. We also spoke about micro payments and nano payments that could be made between two agentic sessions or two agetic buyers and sellers and the use of stablecoins and so forth. And then we also spoke about the possibilities

in the near future that could happen within this whole agentic space. So building on that, let's start with our current state. This is kind of a reiterating from previous podcasts, but what would be good for us to recap on in our understanding what part of agentic commerce is already defined or solved for and what is still to be done.

So why don't we start with that? And Ashish soon as you're new, you are pretty much in this space, hands in, day in, day out. Let's build on what you are seeing every day.

Ashish (12:28.779)
Okay cool, I like the way you said that about authenticity and you know whether agents are good or not. Actually let me like tell you two stories on this right. So the first one is traditionally bots were seen as bad right, there's DDoS attacks we used to face that a lot in marketplaces that we built and

like recently now bots are good. Somehow they have agencies, somehow they want to pay, somehow they want to like you know discover your catalog and what we see in the market is there's still a lag when we work with these enterprises. Some of them outright block the bots and some of these bots are like open AI bot represents 1 billion weekly active users on the other side. It's like leaving money on the table doesn't make sense right. So we have like this kind of a lag between where the infrastructure is, where the enterprises are and the willingness to pay which

which now bots have, right? So that's one interesting trend I see. The second is like in general, the way e-commerce, the agent e-commerce is going, I think there's two barbells kind of emerging. So on one side you have like completely autonomous payments. You'll see like Reddit, even Salesforce recently became headless so that you can do micro and nano payments and start accessing real-time data or in case of like drones, real-time access to NETICOM networks.

So that's one that's happening, but it's not yet real end-to-end for the normal like, know things that we buy the soap and the shampoo and you know, like other things there Agentic commerce is there but it's not like end-to-end agentic commerce. It's basically agent assisted commerce So the other side of barbell is B2B buying or like you have a high spec retailer, let's say printers We are there's no joy of buying printer and the amount of specs inside there is so high that you probably

Maulik Sailor (14:39.935)
That's great. Parvez of this, we do want to add something to what I just said

Ashish (14:40.256)
That's great. Parviz, would you want to add something to what I just said?

Parvez Hussain (14:45.134)
So the thing, so if I bring it up a level, we need to acknowledge the difference in approach between the US and Europe. So in the US, it's agentic commerce, it's been driven by technology. In Europe, it's being shaped by regulation and that's why the Europe versus US distinction matters because the...

Ashish (14:45.49)
So the thing, if I bring it up a level, we need to acknowledge the difference in approach between the US and Europe. So in the US, it's been driven by technology. In Europe, it's being shaped by regulation. And that's why the Europe versus US distinction matters because the

Parvez Hussain (15:12.546)
The U.S. has pushed forward with products into the market. However, the UK and EU are putting up the guardrails in place. it matters if you do the business here, regulation is going to be something that dictates you know, it really dictates the adoption speed. That's the thing I would add.

Ashish (15:12.938)
The US has pushed forward with products into the market. However, the UK and EU are putting up the guardrails in place. So it matters if you do the business here, regulation is going to be something that detects, you know, it really dictates the adoption speed. That's the thing I would add. Okay, cool. Wonderful.

Maulik Sailor (15:31.775)
Wonderful.

I want to address the big elephant in the room when we talk about agentic payments and agentic commerce, the fraud and the liability. Now, agents by definition are going to be probabilistic and not deterministic. There's always a room for error. And there is a chance that a transaction may go wrong, and there is a liability coming out of that.

Ashish (15:36.424)
I want to address the big elephant in the room when we talk about agentic payments and agentic commerce, the liability, the fraud and the liability. Now, agents by definition are going to be probably stake and not deterministic. There's always a room for error. And there is a chance that a transaction may go wrong and there is a liability coming out of that.

Maulik Sailor (16:04.625)
Of course, this is not currently defined. There's still a lot of moving targets in the industry or revolving discussions in the industry going on. And this podcast today is about the future state. What was the future holds like? So in an ideal world, projecting forward, what do you guys think? What would be an ideal state here in terms of the liabilities?

Maulik Sailor (16:32.639)
Anyone Parvez let's start with you. This is your ball game.

Ashish (16:33.489)
Anyway, let's start with you. This is your ball game.

Parvez Hussain (16:36.8)
So in terms of liabilities, in a word, right now, the systems are being worked out. So firstly, reality check in Europe, agentic AI, it's not properly live across UK and European retail yet. However, it's already kind of starting to streamline the retail processes elsewhere, as Ashish was mentioning before.

So that's kind of our baseline in Europe. Europe's probably, I'd say almost 12 months behind the U S and it's not that Europe is asleep. It's a structural thing. So we've got three things that slowing it down. If I think number one is GDPR and the way data is handled and stored. and the second thing is that we're, we're in this big payments transition with PSD three.

which is coming more in 2028. And the third thing is, and this is the vital piece, it's the consumer trust gap. when I, of the things I was reading a BMP Paribas survey of shoppers, it basically said plenty of people are already using AI in the purchase journey in terms of discovery.

However, confidence in kind of actually allowing it to pay, you know, especially when people can't tell if it's a genuine recommendation versus a paid placement. I believe that's the key point in the window. Europe has it, it's got a huge potential in terms of global consumption, but so small, moderate.

adoption would really create a sort of a big movement in retail and consumer sectors but that trust element building that trust is key.

Maulik Sailor (18:34.623)
Ashish What do you think?

Ashish (18:34.962)
That is what we think.

I mean, so we also operate globally. have like clients in like Europe as well, Australia as well, clearly US is ahead in this, right? The last holiday season, agentic shopping was like 10x more, just that one year that grew like almost 10x if I'm not wrong. So I think what we see is that the categories which are problem first, I'm talking about retail right now, that is where you see traffic over index.

I'll explain what that means. It's like if you are looking for a product

then probably are going to Google and search that or go to Amazon and buy it. But if you have a problem and it could be like DIY category, right? So we were working with one of the biggest DIY retailers in Europe. So in those categories, you generally come with a problem that, I have my kids birthday. I want to buy something for her or for him, right? And then takes you from the journey from problem to like a set of product and services. That's where it is coming early. So that's one layer.

And that's where the consumer trust is slowly building. then generally those categories, you don't really care. For example, your charger is broken for your laptop. You don't really care if it's black or blue. As long as it works, has good reviews, you're good, right? So those are the categories where we see a bit of like over indexing. Obviously these are lower single digits. So it is still a smaller niche portion of any of our customers' business. But you never know, the way the world is moving now, what becomes mass.

Ashish (20:11.361)
quickly we don't know the regulation is problem rare sorry I have a question for you Ashish so is there a different kind of attitude from between a regular buying something on a regular basis versus one-off type of purchase so we see I want to build on what they say yeah and I was thinking the same you know as you were talking that

Parvez Hussain (20:13.514)
Ashish, I have a question for you, Ashish. So is there a different kind of attitude from between buying something on a regular basis versus one-off type of purchase?

Maulik Sailor (20:30.079)
I want to build on what Parvez says. And I was thinking the same as you were talking. When we talk of e-commerce, at least in the current day and age, e-commerce is everywhere. You can buy low value mass market product where you don't really care about the utility as much as well as...

Ashish (20:41.605)
You know, when you talk of e-commerce, at least in the current day and age, e-commerce is everywhere. You can buy low value mass market product, you know, where you don't really care about the utility as much, as well as, you know, high value, high price point products where the utility is really high and you want to make sure that you're getting the right product. Plus there might be a lot of customizations required as well to make the product work, product or service, you know, in that sense.

Maulik Sailor (20:54.943)
high value, high price point products where the utility is really high and you want to make sure that you're getting the right product. Plus there might be a lot of customization required as well to make the product work, product or service in that sense. Where are we seeing this adoption and the trend in terms of the agentic commerce and payments? Where do you think...

Ashish (21:11.83)
Where are we seeing this adoption and the trend in terms of like, know, the e-commerce and payments, you where do you think the industry has had it first, right? You know, of course, it's going to spread the word on everywhere, but you know, where is it right now and where could it be next?

Maulik Sailor (21:20.319)
the industry has had it first, right? Of course, it's going to spread the word on everywhere, but where is it right now and where could it be next?

Ashish (21:28.358)
So one on the agentic payments, right? So that's where Parvez is you are the expert, but what we see is that these low stakes purchases, and again, these are like where we see traction. It's not, not traction from businesses, does not mean traction from users, right? So what we see is that, okay, yeah, it makes sense. I am a retailer. There's like now you're aware of Stripe and you know, like all these like payment providers have now agentic token payments where you can say, here's my hundred

Dollars take it and buy three things that I need. And those three things could be, I'm traveling and I need a world adapter and I need a power bank. Right. Just build that basket and do it for me. So that's where you are objectively providing better user experience for your end customers. Right. And then that shows up in better conversion. So those are the categories or the use cases where there is traction, right. Low, low ticket purchases. The ones that you mentioned, I think

you were hinting towards groceries for example right there it's like subscription is good enough

You can subscribe for I don't know like, know utilities and that's good enough. It's not there yet We hear conversations with some of these like big brands that hey elementary data could work there for example you put a Like a sensor on your refrigerator and then it Automatically detects that the egg tray is empty and triggers the purchase But right now subscription as a business model in those like regular purchases is so good I don't think I think it's very hard to like kind of unseat

so easy. It makes business and it has better retention and all those things, right? And I tend to kind of like that subscription model because I created one of the leading subscriptions in Southeast Asia. So I have like a personal affinity to it as well. But really it is coming in those like low ticket items. And then as I mentioned, we label it as agentic commerce, but that agent assisted commerce in B2B. And it's a very interesting thing. So we are doing a bit of research and Walmart had 40 % of their procurement.

Ashish (23:33.88)
anyway happening in what we now call agentic commerce but it was then ML which is hey I'm going out of stock tomorrow

programmatically buy this from PNG, right? So we just changed the name, but looks like in B2B, it was already there. 40 % of Walmart's procurement was happening that way. We see that already now in like some complex categories, but the end decision where you have like, hey, two options are created. Choose one versus B. That human in the loop is still there in these high ticket purchases, right? So they're like two, as I said, there are two

sides of it. The middle layer is kind of empty or maybe it's lagging behind. It's either like you don't care about that SKU and you just want the problem to be solved and you're okay if this goes wrong, Okay, agent order something weird. So what? You can return it. And on the other hand, all this like agent assisted buying is happening.

Maulik Sailor (24:32.703)
That's good. That's good. Right. Now, let's build on that. Now, clearly, as you're working in this space, you you would certainly have a forward-looking view of what the world looks like. Right. And as I understand about your focus area, it's really the top of the funnel where the discovery, the merchant discovery, the product discovery, and all those things come into play. Right. So...

Ashish (24:33.08)
That's good. That's good. Right now. Let's build on that. Right now. Clearly, as you're working in this space, you know, you would certainly have a forward looking view of what the world looks like. Right. And as I understand about your focus area, it's really the top of the funnel where the discovery, the merchant discovery, the product discovery and all those things comes into play. Right. So.

Maulik Sailor (25:02.823)
Again, just to remind our focus of talk today, what does this forward-looking world look like? And in your mind, what's the state of discovery? Is SEO dead going forward? Is AGO the new commerce platform? Do we need storefronts or not? Do we need to do Google Merchant feeds? There's so many questions around here. What's your take over there?

Ashish (25:03.234)
Again, just to remind our focus of talk today, what does this forward-looking world look like? And in your mind, what's the state of discovery? Is SEO that going forward? Is SEO the new commerce platform? Do we need storefronts or not? Do we need to do Google Merchant Feats? There's so many questions around here. What's your take over there?

You mentioned storefronts. think storefronts are still there. has been there pre-e-commerce, know, like, as a young kid in India, I would go to a storefront, right? Just that the storefront shape changed. When internet came, website became the storefront. When the mobile came, app became the storefront. When the social came, your feed became the storefront, right? When the agent took it out, your storefront would be a data layer. Think of it this way. Like no one goes to porsche.com to buy a Porsche. They go there to just look at it, right? And then they go to their dealer and say, I want this color, this financing, et cetera.

Thank

So similarly here, think where it is going is that eventually brand.com will become purely UX based, meaning you go there just for the branding. Right now, if you think about it, they are half-assing. You have like some brand content, beautiful pictures, and then you have like a category and like complex looking drop downs to kind of navigate. I think that will go away. What we'll have is like you have the front end, which is brand heavy, and then you have a back door entry, which would be the data layer, which we are basically building.

here at Airshelf and that's where you go for your purchase and that purchase need not happen on the website. It could happen via your Siri, could be your WhatsApp or whatever, iMessages, whatever you use and you say, hey, I looked at it, it looks great, I want and this particular AI assistant you have would have all the information about you. So one thing that we believe is that ChatGPT won't replace Google.

Ashish (26:58.347)
I think it will be millions or swarms of agents and Maulik will have your own agent and it will know everything about you which you may or may not want to share to chat gpt right so that memory layer is yours and then you have your agent who is doing this like you're delegating stuff to it

And one of the tasks would be commerce and that agent has to go somewhere and that somewhere would be that data layer which would be the unsexy sort of storefront which is back end. So yeah, that's how we are thinking it's happening. Cool. So just to summarize that thought is effectively your data data layer or product catalog is not only your back end, but this also is your

Maulik Sailor (27:31.145)
Cool, so just to summarize that thought is effectively your data layer or product catalog is not only your backend, but this also is your, potential new storefront that you need to manage as you would manage your websites and your physical storefronts and whatever, right? Is fair to say?

Ashish (27:43.103)
a potential new storefront that you need to manage as you would manage your websites and your physical storefronts and whatever.

Is it to say? Yeah, I mean you can add commercial logic also on top of it. So it's not just the catalog because the way agents want to discover like in the human world you have cognitive bandwidth which is limited. So what you put on the label of anything is that hey, these are the two like let's talk supplements magnesium is better for sleep. Right? So you write that but magnesium may be better for 10 other things just that there's no space on the like you don't have cognitive bandwidth to like look at other nine benefits of magnesium.

For an AI agent, they don't have a context window. you can throw in all the information. So the catalog needs to be optimized for this agentic discovery, which is part of what I think this whole discovery layer and the orchestration layer is made of. So yeah, so you have to do a bit of that as well. But I think more or less you got it right. Okay, cool. You know, one thing which always kind of puzzles me, or maybe I'm not aware of as a least and maybe it's already out there, but you know what?

Maulik Sailor (28:41.727)
Yeah. Okay, cool. You know, one thing which always kind of puzzled me, maybe I'm not aware of a solution, maybe it's already out there, but you know what? Generally, you know, let's say you want to buy a product. So the user has a need. They go on Google or Amazon or Walmart or in the store, look for the product, you know, maybe compare with 10 other merchants and then make the decision to buy. Right. But the user always has a,

Ashish (28:52.449)
Generally, let's say you want to buy a product. So if the user has a need, they go on Google, or Amazon, or Walmart, or in the store, look for the product, maybe compare with 10 other merchants, and then make a decision to buy. But the user always has a thought process in their head, as in, want to buy this product by this particular date, or a date at this particular price.

Maulik Sailor (29:11.241)
thought process in the head, as in, want to buy this product by this particular date, right, or a date at this particular price, right? That I'm not going to pay more than this, or I really need this product now, and I'm willing to pay any price for that, or whatever the price of the market is, right? Sometimes we are like, okay, yeah, I want this product, but you know what, I'm not going to pay this price, and I'm happy to wait for sale or discounts or negotiate it down to a level that is comfortable, right? That is how a typical

Ashish (29:21.911)
that I'm not gonna pay more than this, or I really need this product now and I'm willing to pay any price for that, or whatever the price of the market is, right? Sometimes you're like, okay, yeah, I want this product, but you know what, I'm not gonna pay this price and I'm happy to wait for sale or discounts or negotiate it down to a level that is comfortable, right? That is how a typical, like, you the commerce happens, right? And this is all, always has been a user-led. But.

Maulik Sailor (29:40.96)
Like, you know, the commerce happens, right? And this is all always has been a user lad. But that could be a possibility where me as a user, you know, I kind of do a pull like a demand pull that, hey, you know what, this is what my things that I want to buy. You know, maybe I want to buy, you know, some kind of jacket, maybe a car or maybe, you know, whatever, right? You know, holiday, you know.

Ashish (29:49.846)
That could be a possibility where me as a user, I kind of do a pull, like a demand pull, that hey, you know what, this is what my things that I wanna buy, maybe I wanna buy some kind of jacket, maybe a car, or maybe whatever, holiday, create my wishlist, that okay, this is what I'm looking for. Now some of this product might be...

Maulik Sailor (30:09.065)
create my wishlist that, okay, this is what I'm looking for. Now, some of this product might be like, know, commodities, like I don't really care about the brand or whatever, I just need this product at this price, right? Some of the product might be, you know, okay, I want a specific branded product goods for a specific, you know, use case. And some products might have a lot of wearability in it, right? So I'm okay to receive some options on it.

Ashish (30:14.792)
like know commodities like I don't really care about the brand or whatever I just need this product at this price right some of the product might be you know okay I want a specific branded product goods for a specific you know use case and some products might have a lot of variability in it right so I'm okay to receive some options on it

Maulik Sailor (30:36.349)
And if you think of this as a large scale, you know, where millions of users are defining their own purchase list, can it be in this new agentic world can it be more of a brand push, like a brand discovering the demand on the user? Right. Because let's say I don't really care. Like if I create, let's say some smart wallet, you know, defining that wallet, okay, of my, my wishlist and then define, this is all I want. Then I don't really care who fulfills that as long as I'm getting the product I want.

Ashish (30:36.745)
And if you think of this as a large scale, know, where millions of users are defining their own purchase list, can it be in this new agent equal, can it be more of a brand push, like a brand discovering the demand on the user? Right. Because let's say I don't really care. Like if I create, let's say some smart wallet, you know, defining that wallet, okay. All of my, my wishlist and then define this is all I want. And I don't really care who fulfills that as long as I'm getting the product I want.

Maulik Sailor (31:06.183)
At the price point, I'm comfortable paying and when I need it, by. Right. And if brands want to compete and give me the best price or the best service, in a more comfortable manner, I'm happy with it. Right. So this is an aspirational use case that I've been thinking about for a while that, why do I have to go and buy for this product? Just sell me. I want this. Just sell me. The other way, push me, sell to me. Find me and sell it to me.

Ashish (31:06.569)
At the price point, I'm comfortable paying and when I need it, buy. And if brands want to compete and give me the best product or the best service in a more comfortable manner, I'm happy with it. So this is an expeditional use case that I've been thinking about for a while. Why do I have to go and buy for this product? Just sell me. I want this. Just sell me. The other way. Push me. Sell to me.

Find me and sell it to me. This is very interesting. think we thought about it as well. actually very, I'll tell you a small story on this, right? So commerce has always been contextual. If you think about it, in the neighborhood store, the...

uncle or the aunt of the mom and pop store knows that your birthday is coming or you know it's Christmas so they know about your you know like you may have this thing in your wishlist and they sometimes say hey it's already here you I know last time you mentioned you wanted this particular brand and this particular product I got it from the supplier just for you right so that level of personalized context was there which almost got stripped away when e-commerce and supermarkets came right now what you just mentioned about all your wishlist

you want a certain brand, certain price, all that is context, that is personal to Maulik personal to Parvez you know. That context is not digitized or can be digitized. And that's where I think a lot of use cases will come.

We have some examples of that, for example, asynchronous movie ticket booking. You know that you want to watch this movie and whenever it's live or whenever it's released, there's a prompt that, hey, this is now live and then you can watch it. So it's already happening to some extent. I'm not sure if you've seen, chat GPT has a new feature called Pulse. It kind of preempts based on your browsing history what you may want to read.

Ashish (33:03.584)
And what you mentioned is the commerce extension of that. think eventually that's where the world will go for these low ticket purchases, right? Or the wishlist items. And you can sort of come with your wishlist and someone will fulfill that demand. Still a bit of a long way to go. mean, companies like ours or parvez we have to like accelerate that shift to be honest. so Ashish on that layering on top say loyalty.

Parvez Hussain (33:28.406)
And so Ashish on that layering on top say loyalty, how does that, you know, at the beginning of say provisioning an agent for you, you know, say for Malik's agent, would the brands be able to implement their loyalty offerings in there as a, you know, as an initial

Ashish (33:34.304)
How does that, at the beginning of say, provisioning an agent for you, say for Malek's South East agent.

Would the brands be able to implement their loyalty offerings in there as a, you know, as an initial offering to bring, bring Malik and under their kind of wing, let's say, and say, actually, we don't want you to be whatever price, whatever, wherever we want you to come with us. So we're to give you 20 % off here off your first five purchases.

Parvez Hussain (33:52.577)
offering to bring bring Maulik under their kind of wing let's say and say actually we don't want you to be whatever price whatever wherever we want you to come with us so we're going to give you 20 % off here off your first five purchases and so on and so forth

Ashish (34:08.882)
and so on and so forth. It's a very interesting topic, mostly because I used to lead loyalty for Grab and it's a topic close to my heart. actually we have a partnership with a UK based company, White Label Loyalty.

A shield. He sits out of UK. So we are having a long chat about this when he was in Singapore and looks like loyalty is a very tough nut to crack in agentic world because you know like think about all the marketplaces you go to. How are they making money? They have a loss leader tactic. So you enter IKEA to buy something and you end up buying 10 other things or you enter Walmart for that milk which is at a loss leader. But the whole margin driver there is you being influenced as a user either by ads which is a big I mean

in Amazon. was a big bottom line. I'm not talking about GMV or revenue. I'm talking about pure Ebidta That's ads or cross-sell or loyalty. All three are human emotional things where you are influenced. You went there to buy A, you ended up buying B and it's about user behavior change. Agents are rational. So I don't have a good answer for you. Looks like it's a tough nut to crack. Loyalty in the agentic commerce world because these agents are cold machines. know, like wherever you get better value, just switch.

It's like a data, the storefront is data. There's no differentiation. You say, this one is better, you go there. So the switching cost is low. See, I think with the loyalty, there was a phase where a lot of people were brand loyal, as in they would wear a brand because they want to associate themselves with the whole brand positioning and the cause or imagery they used to project. But nowadays, like...

Maulik Sailor (35:31.071)
Yeah. See, I think with the loyalty, there was a phase where a lot of people were brand loyal, as in, you know, they will wear a brand because they want to associate themselves with, you know, the whole brand positioning and the cause or imagery they used to project. But nowadays, like, I think pretty much across all the segments or all the goods, maybe there might be a few where you really want to follow a brand.

Ashish (35:53.137)
I think pretty much across all the segments or all the goods, maybe there might be a few where you really want to follow a brand. apart from that, most of the, like you know, take mass market, know, mid market, premium market, luxury market, know, fashion, automobile, whatever, you know, you've got enough of the brands in pretty much all the segments, right?

Maulik Sailor (36:00.434)
Apart from that, most of the like, you you take mass market, know, mid market, premium market, luxury market, know, fashion, automobile, whatever, you know, you've got enough of the brands in pretty much all the segments. Right. And most of the brands are, I would say, functionally very similar. Right. So I think the brand loyalty, maybe I could be wrong, but at least I think that is was on a dying way out anyways, from consumer point of view. Right.

But I have a theory, right? The theory is that a consumer is only loyal to his or her own convenience. Right. And I'm talking that from my own experience, because let's say I want to buy something, right. And I can go to Google, I can try to find a merchant's website, you know, maybe try to place an order and get delivered or, but then the merchant will ask me to fill in my contact details, you know, create an account or whatever. Right.

Maybe I can find it at some other retailer, know, again, similar experience, maybe slightly better price, but again, similar pain point or whatever. And then I just go, you know, I up going to Amazon and buying it. I mean, same retailer, if it, like, you some products they're selling on Amazon, then I'll just buy from Amazon, right? Not because I'm overly loyal to Amazon. It's just because I'm, I just want that convenience. You know, I don't want to fill up all that forms you know, I don't want to be like, you know, if things go wrong.

Ashish (37:04.926)
again similar experience, maybe slightly better price, again, similar pain point or whatever. And then.

I just go, you know, I end up going to Amazon and buying it. I mean, same retailer, if it, like, some products they're selling on Amazon, then I just buy from Amazon, right? Not because I'm overly loyal to Amazon. It's just because I'm, I just want that convenience. You know, don't want to feel up all that farms, you know, I don't want to be like, you know, if things go wrong, go back and figure out where to return and all, know, with Amazon, can just do that. So personally, you know, I don't think I'm loyal to Amazon particularly.

Maulik Sailor (37:28.435)
go back and figure out where to return and all, know, with Amazon, can just do that. So personally, you know, I don't think I'm loyal to Amazon particularly, but I think I'm very loyal to my own convenience. And for that reason, I end up using Amazon most of the time. Right. So predicting that out in the agentic world, I think an agent that makes like, you know, that convenience, like

Ashish (37:39.516)
But I think I'm very loyal to my own convenience. And for that reason, I end up using Amazon most of the time. So, that out in the agentic world, I think an agent that makes that convenience, like ACIP Prime focus, may win. It may not win a lot of customers, but at least it will win customers like me.

Maulik Sailor (37:57.99)
Asap Prime focus, right, may win. It may not win a lot of customers, but at least it will win customers like me.

Parvez Hussain (38:07.502)
I feel that's so if I, if I had a point and angle that that's you contextualizing your agent to be very specific to your kind of wants and needs. Now, if I, if I, if I extrapolate out like a different generation, the new generation coming through where things are gamified to a point where they're collecting points on, you know, when I think of my 12 year old daughter, there's a particular way that she interacts with commerce.

Ashish (38:07.934)
I feel that's so if I had to point an angle that that's you contextualizing your agent to be very specific to your kind of wants and needs. Now if I extrapolate out like a different generation, the new generation coming through where things are gamified to a point where they're collecting points on, you know, when I think of my 12 year old daughter, there's a particular way that she interacts with

Parvez Hussain (38:37.358)
in terms of things that she sees dropping and how she wants to get this and that, because you're going to get this level of points or it's a whole other mindset. there will be your way of doing it. Well, I also feel there'll be other other kind of routes and paths in this.

Ashish (38:58.063)
Yeah, mean, maybe I'll add Parvez So it's it's n equal to one, right? We had these user segmentation, someone, I think, Maulik you mentioned convenience seeker, right? So how we define segments in consumers is like value service and selection. Some are value seekers, some are service seekers. So like, know, like...

money, poor, time-rich people, like students, would queue up for like one hour to get that 10 % off, you know? So yeah, there are different segments. Just that with this agentic kind of like journey, what happens is that every single one of us will have a graph of what percentage of your, you know, preferences on value versus selection versus service. And that...

kind of like becomes very hyper personalized so to speak and That's where it will go. It's just that earlier We are not able to do it because it was not like practical So we had like these consumer segments and we had the premium ones and the value seeker ones It will just go like that. But actually that's the way you put it. It's like

It's the underlying user behavior, is, which, I mean, which draws you to Amazon, but some people go to, you know, uh, Taobao now and wait for seven days so that in Singapore, the stuff that arrives is cheap. So there are always two type of, uh, like many segments. Yeah. Like my daughter.

Parvez Hussain (40:22.222)
Yeah, like so for my daughter Sheen is the way that operates. It's, um, it's very, I see the addiction to, to that platform, even though it takes, she doesn't care that it's going to take, you know, uh, seven days, 10 days for it to arrive. It's, she wants it from there, that particular thing.

Maulik Sailor (40:22.303)
Okay.

Ashish (40:28.732)
It's very, see the addiction to that platform. Even though she doesn't care that it's going to take, you know, seven days, 10 days for it to arrive. She wants from there, that particular thing. And it's like, I can maybe add one more thing on this. You mentioned gamification, right? So I'm personally not a fan of it. In fact, if you enter any marketplace in Southeast Asia,

Maulik Sailor (40:43.423)
Yeah.

Ashish (40:54.301)
or even like these like you mentioned Sheen or you know there's Temu. It's like entering a casino. You are collecting coins, you are like spinning a wheel. I was like, okay, hey, I came here just to get diapers for my daughter. You know, like what the hell? And they're trying to like, you know, they're optimizer for everything except my user experience. Like cross-sell, engagement.

Parvez Hussain (41:02.936)
Thanks.

Parvez Hussain (41:16.994)
Yeah, exactly. I find it very frustrating. I'm like, just want to get to the bit and things keep flashing up.

Ashish (41:19.951)
Exactly. I find it very frustrating. like, I just want to get to the bit and things keep flashing up. Exactly. So apparently there is a market out for it. We are not in that segment, you know, and that's the reason why we would be the first ones to go for agentic commerce. I would be happy to just ask my agent diapers for my daughter are running out. She's one year old. Go get the next batch. But that's bad news for marketplaces. As I mentioned, they make money from ads and gossip and the influence would be lower because our agents have zero agency beyond what they are doing.

Maulik Sailor (41:44.809)
you

Ashish (41:49.854)
So this whole marketplace model kind of crashes if there are for our segment who are like I would say convenience seeker who just want to get the job done but if you are into those like fashion and scrawling and browsing all the like latest trends and whatever you know Temu and Sheen then that's a different audience. So yeah it's coming I think it's there just that different segments coming at different times for different segments different categories is

Maulik Sailor (42:21.567)
Yeah, cool. You guys mentioned about pricing right over there. Now again, pricing is an important part of any commerce platform and commerce transactions. You got to exchange, not the payment, you got to pay, but there's a price before that.

Ashish (42:24.556)
You guys mentioned about pricing right over there. Now again pricing is an important part of any

Maulik Sailor (42:47.335)
Like you always have price of the product and then price of the convenience and then price of the brand loyalty and the price of everything else. I think there might be a carbon tax coming up in the pricing as well. And some product, again, you have a market pricing, particularly for commodities, you have market pricing that, OK, this is what the current wholesale or whatever the market price is.

and that's what you're going to get. But some products have completely random price. Today you might buy at one price, tomorrow it might be completely different price and so forth.

What's your take on it? Now, again, I'm just talking more experienced here that you know what in a perfect world or an agentic world this pricing function look like.

Ashish (43:38.924)
function look like. Parvez you want to go first? I would say we're heading towards, so the way I would deem it to be is dynamic pricing. depending on supply and demand, if there is a demand drop on something what's gone viral, obviously it will adjust as soon as the API hits hitting on a particular product, particular skew.

Parvez Hussain (43:43.023)
I would say we're heading towards, the way I would deem it to be is a dynamic pricing. depending on supply and demand, if there is a demand drop on something, what's gone viral, obviously it will adjust as soon as the API hits are hitting on a particular product, particular SKU

the retailer would be able to adjust that knowing that, okay, there's a huge demand now. We can up the price or whatever. And conversely, if that change is down, then they're trying to get rid of stock, then switch it the other way.

Ashish (44:06.746)
the retailer would be able to adjust that knowing that, okay, that there's a huge demand now, we can up the price or whatever. And conversely, if that change is down, then they're trying to get rid of stock, then switch it the other way.

I mean, I completely agree with Parvez actually, like, so I have like, by, like, I have an economist by training and it's economically, objectively better for every, every party involved for the price to be dynamic. But somehow, like, especially for retail, there's this like taboo that, hey, price discrimination and actually it's illegal in most jurisdictions. And you have to like discriminate and for that you need to have a reason like, hey,

you are a prime member or you know you are a student prove it with a KYC that you have a student ID and that's the only way you can discriminate price and there was time like early days of e-commerce where you might have done like Android pricing is different from iOS just to try some experiments and we got in trouble but the point is this

If you like what I parvez mentioned that's true for let's say if you take an Uber, you're okay to be the $20 or like 20 euros, but then suddenly you're paying 30 because it's peak hours. So you're trained now for that. Like I'll be taking a flight to SF like shortly and the person sitting to me might be paying thousand dollars more, but I planned it before. Right. And they are used to kind of like, uh, as a society, okay with that, right? Okay. Uh, you can sit on the same flight, same plane, uh, besides and pay a different price, but some of.

when it comes to retail items.

Ashish (45:43.994)
If you're doing the same thing for soap, that's illegal somehow, right? And I think it's very weird. you know, so somehow we have cracked it in service economy. Even there, I don't think it is cracked fully because if you're in a barber shop, are someone is paying 20 bucks and another guy is paying 30 bucks. might be a fight between them. Like how the hell that's happening, right? So I think the end, like objectively speaking, that's the end state. That's the reason why that never happened is because in e-commerce you had this one to

Maulik Sailor (45:47.728)
You

Ashish (46:13.9)
Right, know flash sale $4.99. Everyone buys that take it or leave it. That's not good That's not objectively good for anyone in there. Anyone involved in there, right? But let's see here how regulations kind of catch up to this You give a great example. says, you know next time I go to my barbershop I need to check the demand first before I start in. Yeah And they go set the price down. Hey, you don't really have a lot of effort to spend on me

Maulik Sailor (46:16.541)
Yeah. Yeah.

Maulik Sailor (46:27.263)
You give a great example, says, you next time I go to my barbershop, I need to check the demand first before I step in. And negotiate go set the price down. Hey, you don't really have a lot of effort to spend on me.

Ashish (46:41.497)
And you can do search pricing, know, like here's my extra 10 bucks. I got the queue. Yeah. Cool. All right. Now we've been talking for a while, right? And before we wrap up, you know, I just want to check on any audience questions that might be coming in. So just give me a second. I just want to go to the live stream and see if there are any comments.

Maulik Sailor (46:45.147)
Yeah, yeah. Cool. All right. Now, we've been talking for a while, right? And before we wrap up, I just want to check on any audience questions that might be coming in. So just give me a second. I just want to go to the live stream and see if there are any comments.

Right. Okay, cool. All right. Let's, there are a few questions that has come up, right? Let's start with the first one. Will product differentiation still matter in agentic discovery or are we moving towards a low risk, highest confidence commodity market decided by agents? A little bit complex. What do you guys think?

Ashish (47:08.121)
Right. Okay, cool. All right. Let's, there are a few questions that has come up, right? Let's start with the first one. Will product differentiation still matter in agent discovery or are we moving towards a low risk, highest confidence commodity market decided by agents? A little bit complex. What do you guys think?

Hmm. Okay, I will take a stab, which is unlike stock market, which is fungible, right? Agents are still working on behest of someone on the other side, right? So I don't think it will be as simplistic as it just moves to the lowest risk, highest confidence commodity. Might happen for certain things, which are like more fungible items, you know, like, but that's already happening for stock, the corn trading.

So yeah, I mean, I'm not really sure about this happening, but yeah, there will be some level of commoditization just because, you know, we were talking about loyalty, very hard to keep agents loyal because switching cost is so low.

Maulik Sailor (48:17.865)
Yeah, Parvez? is anything to add.

Parvez Hussain (48:21.038)
I'd say it's not just about how do we convert the customers. becomes how do you stay visible and persuasive when the first customer isn't a human being and it's an AI agent. I think that's the key in here.

Ashish (48:21.322)
I'd say it's not just about how do we convert the customers, becomes how do you stay visible and persuasive when the first customer isn't a human being and it's an AI agent. I think that's the key in here. Okay, cool. Another question. Do you realistically see a world where agents are allowed to transact without step up authentication in B2C?

Maulik Sailor (48:38.463)
OK, cool. Another question. Do you realistically see a world where agents are allowed to transact without step-up authentication in B2C, or will human interloop always remain?

Ashish (48:49.652)
or will human in the loop always remain? It's already happening. I can go, just a quick one. I had an OpenClaw agent set up.

like our AI employee and it just bought a subscription service because I had given it this, like given the agency that hey up to $50 you have a card to make that purchase and it did. So it's happening already for these SaaS purchases, know, this was for like, think signing a contract and it required like a premium version of DocuSign and it did it. So it's already kind of happening. Obviously I had given that permission ASIC before.

that you can go ahead and do that. Yeah, so it's there. I feel, so I think as long as the permission is bounded within particular guardrails, know, particular to you, Ashish, particular to you, Malik or myself, how, how will we want, you know, the strict limits, we will allow it to play within those limits. I think as long as you have that control, yes.

Parvez Hussain (49:38.49)
I feel, so I think as long as the permission is bounded within particular guardrails, know, particular to you, as she's particular to you, Maulik or myself, how, how we want, you know, the, the strict limits, we will allow it to play within those limits. And I think as long as you have that control, yes.

Maulik Sailor (49:59.156)
Yeah. My take on that is like, you know, right now, the you are basically approving an agent to transact on your behalf. So you are still the party liable for any losses or any errors, right? And I think there is still an unknown piece is like, OK, when two agents are transacting, you know, completely autonomously.

Ashish (49:59.479)
Yeah, my take on that is like, you know, right now the you are basically approving an agent to transit on your behalf. So you are still the party liable for any losses or any any errors. Right. And I think there's still an unknown piece is like, OK, when two agents are transacting, you know, completely autonomously.

Maulik Sailor (50:29.663)
Who would be liable for that transaction when things go wrong? Is it the agent itself or the models or the retailers or the buyers or the seller or the payment network? I think there's a lot of unknown over there. I think, yes, I can see a world where there is human in the loop is not required for a lot of transactions. There will be certain scenarios where you do need human in the loop. There will be a situation where

Ashish (50:30.039)
who would be liable for that transaction when things go wrong, right? Is it the agent itself or the models or the retailers or the buyers or the seller or the payment network? I think there's a lot of unknown over there. So I think, yes, I can see a world where there is human in the loop is not required for a lot of transactions. There will be like, know, certain scenarios where you do need human in the loop. There will be like, you know, a situation where

Maulik Sailor (50:59.091)
completely frictionless payments happening between agents. There will be a situation where for certain kind of goods and payment mechanism, there would be a friction introduced to make sure that the agents are acting on behalf of the user and are authorized to make that particular transaction, right? So I think I see more of a mixed world. I don't think there's one like, you know, end state. I think the world is going to be more mixed.

Ashish (50:59.458)
completely frictionless payments happening between agents. There will be a situation where for certain kind of goods and payment mechanism, there would be a friction introduced to make sure that the agents are acting on behalf of the user and are authorized to make that particular transaction, right? So I think I see more of a mixed world. I don't think there's one.

like know, end state, I think the world is gonna be more fixed. We can think of it this way in my like the way I'm thinking about this is that it's not human in the loop, it's like eventually the loop will end and there'll be a liable human in the loop because you can't send agents to jail, right? So, eventually like you know when I'm pre-authorizing 50 dollars to my agent, it's me, right? So that's possible with the corporate card.

So there's always like some human eventually who is not in the loop, will be there for liability. Cool. think just going to talk, I'll take one more. For a mid-sized retailer with limited resources, what is the single non-negotiable system change required to be agent ready in 2026? that's like...

Maulik Sailor (51:57.918)
Yeah, cool. think just given the time, I'll take one more. For a mid-sized retailer with limited resources, what is the single non-negotiable system change required to be agent ready in 2026?

Ashish (52:17.759)
right up my alley. I mean, have, okay, shameless plug. So we have a agent experience score where any retailer and brand.com can go and check their score. AX is basically user experience, but for agents. So it's like ax.airshelf.ai. You'll see the whole audit, what's wrong, what needs to be done. And one of the things there would be all these protocols are coming. Like the big model companies are saying, hey, this is the way you should organize your data.

Parvez Hussain (52:34.798)
Hmm

Ashish (52:46.038)
So you have to ahead and do that at some point, right? So I think that's one which I would recommend. Yeah, cool. I think that's a great question to basically start wrapping up on our discussion today. And I think I wanted to wrap up all the three parts here is that we take on top three.

Maulik Sailor (52:53.971)
Yeah, cool. think that's a great question to basically start wrapping up on our discussion today. And I think I wanted to wrap up like, you know, all the three part series that we did on like, you know, top three tips or takeaway, would recommend businesses to do now, pretty much now in 2026 so that they are at least getting ready towards this whole agent commerce world.

And I think one very important one, which we all touched upon today as well as in the first two parts, is getting your data ready. I think in all the discussions we had, we very rightly identified that the data, your product catalog, and the meta information about the product, as well as your platform and your brand, is going to be super important for any agent to discover.

you as a platform, you as a retailer, the products you are selling and so forth, right? The context of what you are selling, the context of users, the context of your service levels and everything else is gonna matter more. So think getting that data foundation in place is probably the most important thing you can do right now, right? So everything you do or the better data structures you have, the better data formats you have,

That's going to power every single thing downstream in this agent equal. Am I right to say, guys?

Parvez Hussain (54:27.06)
Absolutely. That was one of the five I have, I had in terms of practical actions. I've got them kind of ranked by the regulatory urgency because regulations coming and it's not hype. So my first one I had was get ready for the EU AI act, which is coming in August. So you're working out what your use cases are and where they sit in the risk tiers and

Ashish (54:28.266)
That's one of the five I have I had in terms of practical actions. I've got them kind of ranked by the regulatory urgency because regulations coming and it's not hype. So my first one I had was get ready for the EU AI Act, which is coming in August. So you're working out what your use cases are and where they sit in the risk tiers and be ready for those obligations, know, transparent.

Parvez Hussain (54:54.946)
Be ready for those obligations, know, transparency, monitoring and accountability. and the second thing was around the GDPR compliance and you know, how you store your data. So, and how your, agents access that data. So there's a preference for retrieval over, you know, retention of data, let the agent pull the data from the source systems when it needs.

Ashish (54:58.199)
monitoring and accountability. And the second thing was around the GDPR compliance and you know how you store your data so and how your agents access that data so.

there's a preference for retrieval over retention of data. Let the agent pull the data from the source systems when it needs rather than just having it in its memory. And the third thing is around the consumer law audit, where you go through every agented touch point, pricing, comparisons, refunds, customer service, and test it against existing consumer protection law.

Parvez Hussain (55:23.468)
rather than just having it in its memory. And the third thing is around the consumer law audit, you where you go through every agentic touch point, pricing, comparisons, refunds, customer service, and test it against existing consumer protection law. Because the competition markets authorities are not waiting for the new legislation. They've given that as a guidance already.

Ashish (55:43.881)
Because the competition markets authorities are not waiting for the new legislation. They've given that as a guidance already.

Parvez Hussain (55:53.081)
And the fourth thing was around the data foundations, as you mentioned, Maulik So I won't go into that again. The final thing I'd say is building the mandate for, you know, your payments architecture, putting in spending limits, delegation, token frameworks, and start aligning to where PSD three is already heading. because ultimately where merchants build early, they won't be forced to have to retro into,

Ashish (55:53.563)
The fourth thing was around the data foundations as you mentioned, Malik, so I won't go into that again. The final thing I'd say is building the mandate for your payments architecture, putting in spending limits, delegation token frameworks, and start aligning to where PSD3 is already heading. Because ultimately where merchants build early, they won't be forced to have to retro into PSD3 when it comes in

Parvez Hussain (56:21.24)
PSD3 when it comes in 2028.

Ashish (56:23.666)
Yeah, great one Parvez, you know, had quite more accent points than me. How about yours? I think Parvez, you gave a very comprehensive list anyway. I think I would just reiterate the data point. Actually, if you think about it, there's this now new meme that, oil is the new oil, right? Not data. Oil is the new oil. I think that data is the new storefront.

Maulik Sailor (56:25.098)
Yeah, great one, Parviz. You know, had quite more excellent points than me. How about you, Ashish'

Ashish (56:49.684)
And it's all the game of data. So I think what Malik you said, I just conquer. Get the data right, put more attributes there, policy clarity, everything. Because earlier you had this assumption that users have limited bandwidth. Agents can read realms and realms of whatever you put out there. So you can be rigorous in the benefits you shout out and the policies you mentioned. And basically get ready for it, because it's coming.

Maulik Sailor (57:19.104)
So that is for today, folks. As you heard from this three-part series, Agentic in Commerce isn't the future anymore. It is actually happening all around us. And the markets, the platforms are changing very fast to adopt that. And it's just a matter of time before it's more mainstream and pretty much everything you are doing is Agentic in Maybe in the surface, you might see some UI layer. Maybe you are still interacting your website.

Ashish (57:19.452)
Cool. So that is for today folks. As you heard from this three part series, I the commerce isn't the future anymore. It is actually happening all around us and the markets, the platforms are changing very fast to adopt that. And it's just a matter of time before it's been more mainstream and pretty much everything you are doing.

Maybe in the surface you might see some UI layer, maybe you are still interacting your website the way you would, but there would be an agent behind the scenes doing everything for you, including transactions and checking out and the inventory and everything else. So it's happening right now and the urgency needs to be there for most of the players in this space to be part of that.

Maulik Sailor (57:48.596)
the way you would, but there would be an agent behind the scenes doing everything for you, including, know, transactions and checking out and the inventory and everything else, So it's happening right now. And, you know, the urgency needs to be there for most of the players in this space to be part of that. So in today's conversation, I think it was useful to hear from two veterans, Ashish' and Parvez

Ashish (58:10.971)
So in today's conversation, I think it was useful to hear from two veterans, Arcees and Parvase, who are hands-on in this particular space. So thanks a lot to both of you for making an effort to join me today and sharing your insights. Thanks a lot, Arcees, and thanks a lot, Parvase, for joining.

Maulik Sailor (58:18.304)
who are hands-on in this particular space. So thanks a lot to both of you for making an effort to join me today and sharing your insights. Thanks a lot to Ashish and thanks a lot to Parvez for joining. And I also want to thank all the people who are listening live today and who sent in the questions for our panelists to answer. It was pretty good. And if you find this session useful, then

Ashish (58:35.013)
I also want to thank all the people who are listening live today and who sent in the questions for our panelists to answer. It was pretty good. And if you find this session useful, then do subscribe to our online calendar where we do publish out all these events that are happening in the future.

Maulik Sailor (58:47.936)
do subscribe to our online calendar where we do publish out all these events that are happening in the near future. We are hoping to do at least one event every month and build up a whole series for the entire of 2026. And that's it, folks. Until next time, stay curious, stay informed, and get feature ready. Thanks a lot.

Ashish (58:57.501)
hoping to do at least one event every month and build up a whole series for the entire of 2026. And that's it, folks. Until next time, stay curious, stay informed, and get future ready. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thanks, Maulik Thank you.

Parvez Hussain (59:14.233)
Thank you.