When Bill Gates coined the term ‘frictionless capitalism’ in his 1995 book The Road Ahead, he was identifying the key driver for some of Silicon Valley’s major contributions of the past 30 years.

Since then, the Tech world has focused on creating unobtrusive interfaces between different sectors, in a way that takes the human work out of the equation. Voice recognition and home appliances; cameras and self-driving cars.    

This ‘frictionless’ approach uses technology to eliminate wasted human energy – thought, effort, time, misalignment – between one’s wishes and what gets delivered. The headline examples are the ones that drive attention. Devices like Elon Musk’s Neuralink, or Amazon’s Alexa anticipating your shopping basket, pre-filling it based on your family’s needs and habitual choices, for instance.  

But the approach is everywhere.

We no longer need to memorise or write down phone numbers, for example, because everybody we know has a photo, name, and a cluster of their likes, recent career moves, details and photos just a touch away.

We assume that when we want something – a Thai dish, some shopping, almost any a service or product – it is there, at the touch of a couple of those same buttons on our device.

Now, this frictionless approach is getting a boost from AI. 

In May 2025, tech giant Google announced that it would start introducing an ‘agentic checkout’ as part of Google users’ shopping experiences. By October 2025, Amazon had announced it was laying off human staff to invest more in AI as “the most transformative technology we’ve seen since the Internet” in retail.

The idea is that rather than guessing what you might want, AI ‘agents’ in your device can use a number of different data points to far more intuitively anticipate your needs, even your whims – often before you’re aware of them – and to buy accordingly.

That means through its “shop with AI” mode, users will be able to complete purchases entirely within an AI-backed virtual environment – essentially outsourcing their shopping to an AI agent to do it for them.

What does this mean in practice?

Imagine you are re-fitting a bathroom. Traditionally you see an ad, search for products, read reviews, select items, check out and make payments. In the age of agentic commerce, you can simply instruct your AI to source the best suppliers, generate summaries, and handle orders. Your AI agent takes care of everything – from placing the order to managing payment, all while seamlessly integrating with your apps, such as Gmail and Google Drive in this case.

Since at least 2010 when it published its Zero Moment of Truth manifesto, Google has been preoccupied with the idea that it can ‘own’ the moment before we make our shopping decisions. That is, the moment when ideas occur to us, and products we had not considered buying previously are suggested to us to buy. This is part of its business pitch to advertisers on Google’s platforms.

Last year, according to Statista, Google processed 5.9 million searches per minute – equivalent to 8.5 billion per day. But with increased competition from platforms like ChatGPT (which is thought to handle 1 billion queries per day), Google’s advertising model appeared to be under threat. 

In the same way as Amazon’s Alexa sought to place itself as an intuitive listener, gauging our interests and suggesting purchases before we even knew we wanted them, Google is making its pitch the coming-together of buying intent and decision-making – frictionlessly. 

For stores and payment companies as well as shoppers, there are still questions.

Who deals with fraudulent purchases? What happens if a product doesn’t match its description? How do we validate customer identities, and who bears the risk? Every fraud model will need a complete overhaul to keep pace with this new world.

“Agentic commerce is set to reshape how we consume goods and services; anticipating our needs before we even express them. The challenge for retailers, commerce platforms and payment providers is to build processes and systems that are trusted, transparent, and resilient whilst quietly powering our lives in the background.” says Mark Brant, Chief Payments Officer, NatWest Group.

For online shops accustomed to optimised checkout pages, this shift to "ambient commerce" (yes, a new buzzword) will turn buying decisions into unconscious functions of a silent algorithm.

Are we looking at a future in which our phone will track not just our purchases, but our lives, our social posts, our emails and relationships, and quietly work within certain pre-agreed restrictions to purchase and deliver the things we need, or even want, before we have to think of them? Effectively, where AI agents function as silent, digital butlers?

Or are we viewing a world of complex questions around permissions, scams, and data access?

The point where we get these answers may have moved a step closer with Google’s announcement. 

• A new generation of ‘AI agents’ from Google, Amazon and other online shopping platforms, aims to anticipate your shopping needs
• The idea is that ‘frictionless’ shopping means it’s easier for you – and less prone to being delayed or rethought. This provides the upside for retailers. 
• There are early moves to bring AI agents into customer interfaces from Amazon and Google, among others.
• There is still much uncertainty however. By taking decision-making out of the process of shopping – and by making it more ‘hands-off’ for the person paying – issues around intent to purchase, scams, and more, will need to be resolved.
• The future of shopping may well include AI agents as an element. But how far may depend on the kind of shopping – small purchases vs big decisions etc.