Travis Hess, CEO of Commerce and expert in AI-driven strategies, joins the conversation to explore the future of omnichannel commerce. He emphasizes the shift from traditional channels to engaging customers across multiple surfaces. The discussion highlights the need to design for AI agents, balancing data-driven marketing with authentic storytelling. Travis predicts the rise of hyper-personalized experiences and stresses the urgency for brands to adapt and own their data. Insights into generational behaviors and consortium-style loyalty models round out the thought-provoking dialogue.
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insights INSIGHT
Context Beats Channels
Consumers live in an always-passive shopping mode where context matters more than channels.
Future commerce will be omnimodal, favoring surfaces and context over traditional channel funnels.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Early Agentic Demo Predicted Today's Pace
Phillip demonstrated an agentic search-and-buy demo for headphones inside Perplexity earlier in the year.
He used that January demo to predict how commonplace agentic commerce would become by December.
insights INSIGHT
Agents Will Orchestrate Commerce
Agents will orchestrate commerce by negotiating intent, price, inventory and fulfillment across open standards.
The industry is shifting from channels to agent-driven surfaces and composable primitives.
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The brands that will thrive in the next era of commerce understand that context drives everything, from platform choice to storytelling and trust formation. As a result, success hinges on a brand’s ability to serve customers across multiple contexts rather than controlling single experiences.
For the season finale, Commerce CEO Travis Hess joins Phillip and Lindsay to explore what it means when "the customer is the channel." The conversation tackles designing for AI agents alongside humans, reaching customers across surfaces independent of purchase location, and balancing data-driven marketing with authentic storytelling. Travis shares why brands must embrace agentic commerce now, and the mindset shifts required for 2026, synthesizing the season's insights into actionable guidance.
The Customer is the Channel
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Omnimodal commerce shifts focus from channels to surfaces where customers engage across contexts.
Design for agents, not just humans. Agentic intermediaries will shape future commerce experiences.
"The customer is the channel" requires reaching consumers wherever they want to engage.
Balance data-driven performance marketing with authentic human storytelling to preserve brand equity.
[00:37:35] "Brands need to go where their customers want to engage them across different surfaces—whether they're buying through that channel or it's influencing purchase through a different channel you may or may not own."
[00:39:15] "Brands need to design for agents, not just humans and agent intermediaries. They're the ones who are going to show up and ultimately win. It's not like the old days, where we just assumed humans were coming to our channels."
ibution and surface and signal more than probably the traditional commerce side."
[00:33:55] "There's nothing more important than the brand, than the narrative, than the story, than the equity that is there. That is the power. I very much see that being controlled still by humans and maybe informed by AI."
Associated Links:
New Modes Research: How AI is Shaping New Commerce Contexts and Expectations
Future Commerce