If an agent shops for you, who needs a marketplace?

This note has an interactive demo. Try it in the original

I have a hunch I can't shake: when an agent buys things for you, you stop caring where it buys them.

Today you open Amazon out of habit. Your card is saved there, along with the app, the search and the trust that the parcel will show up. But an agent has no habits. It doesn't open the usual app. You ask for something and it looks for the best place to get it. If that happens at scale, a marketplace's biggest asset, being the place where shopping starts, gets weaker.

That's why I think brand stores are coming back. If the agent hunts for the best price, and selling to you directly is cheaper for the brand because it pays no commission, that's where the agent will end up sending you. And someone will have to build those stores. There will be work for developers.

The demo above is a toy for thinking about this: three shops, a simulated agent, and you moving price, commission, shipping, returns and whether the data can be read. Try switching off a shop's readable data and see what happens.

What's already happening

This part is facts, not opinion.

Meta introduced Muse on September 8, 2026, a personal agent that can do tasks for you, shopping included. According to Meta's announcement, it's rolling out in the US (iOS, Android and the web), checks out with Link by Stripe, and asks you before sensitive actions like making a purchase.
Google launched the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) on January 11, 2026, an open standard for agents to buy from stores, developed with Shopify, Etsy, Wayfair, Target and Walmart. Today the protocol's official site also lists Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Salesforce and Stripe among its co-developers.
OpenAI and Stripe have their own protocol, the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), announced in September 2025. Stripe's documentation now describes it as created by Stripe, OpenAI and Meta.

The most telling part is how Amazon reacted. PCWorld reports that it has blocked Muse from its website. And it sued Perplexity over its Comet browser: a federal court in California granted Amazon a preliminary injunction on March 9, 2026, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated it on August 4. The court makes a point of saying it does "not establish a new legal regime governing agentic AI" and that its holding is limited to this case and the record in front of it.

Nobody fights this hard over something that doesn't scare them.

Where I think I could be wrong

"The death of marketplaces" sounds great, but I'm probably overstating it.

Amazon isn't just a search box. It's logistics, no-questions-asked returns and millions of reviews. A good agent doesn't compare price alone: it compares when the thing arrives and what happens if it goes wrong. A marketplace still has a lot going for it there. You can see it right away in the demo: switch the priority to "Get it now" and the marketplace wins even though it costs more.

We might just swap one middleman for another. If the agent decides for you, the agent becomes the new shop window. And whoever controls that recommendation will have a lot of power over brands, just like the marketplace does today.

A small brand won't show up on its own. If the agent can't read your stock, your price and your terms, you don't exist to it, however nice your website looks.

What "machine-readable" means

In practice, it means price, shipping and returns are written down as data, not just inside an image or behind an "ask us". One way to do that today is the schema.org vocabulary in JSON-LD. It's what the demo shows when you open "What the agent reads":

{ "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "Product", "name": "Wireless headphones", "offers": { "@type": "Offer", "price": 76, "priceCurrency": "EUR", "availability": "https://schema.org/InStock", "shippingDetails": { "@type": "OfferShippingDetails", "shippingRate": { "@type": "MonetaryAmount", "value": 4, "currency": "EUR" }, "deliveryTime": { "@type": "ShippingDeliveryTime", "transitTime": { "@type": "QuantitativeValue", "minValue": 3, "maxValue": 3, "unitCode": "DAY" } } }, "hasMerchantReturnPolicy": { "@type": "MerchantReturnPolicy", "returnPolicyCategory": "https://schema.org/MerchantReturnFiniteReturnWindow", "merchantReturnDays": 30 } } }

It's not the only piece. Protocols like UCP and ACP go further and cover payment too. But the underlying idea is the same: if a machine can't read your terms, it can't pick you.

What I am sure about

I don't think marketplaces will die. I think they lose their monopoly on the front door, and that alone changes a lot.

And yes, there will be work, but not the usual kind. It won't just be about making pretty pages. A store will have to be easy for a machine to understand: a well-structured catalog, real stock, clear prices, readable shipping and return terms, and a checkout an agent can complete. Getting that right is technical work, and many older stores aren't ready for it.

It's true that agents write code too. But wiring up a business's real stock, its carriers and its returns is still a job someone has to understand and answer for.

If you run a store, my advice is simple: don't leave the marketplace, but don't depend on it alone. Have your own store, with your data in order.

What to keep an eye on

Whether Amazon, which is already listed among UCP's co-developers, ends up opening its store to other companies' agents or keeps blocking them.
What commission agents charge per sale.
Whether agents really recommend the brand or only whoever already has deals with them.

If you're wondering how to get your store ready for this, write to me and we can talk it through.

Richi's opinion, written with AI help.