Ecommerce is evolving fast. Not just in how people shop, but in who is doing the shopping.
AI agents are no longer just doing research, they’re taking on tasks. They're becoming buyers, handling discovery, decision-making, and checkout without ever involving a human hand. But for merchants, that shift comes with a critical question:
Who controls the transaction flow, you or the machine?
There are three emerging paths to agentic checkout. Two of them give merchants control, visibility, and performance. One of them doesn’t.
1. Checkout Owned by the LLM
You’re in the transaction, but you’re not in charge.
In this scenario, the LLM (ChatGPT, Gemini, etc.) owns the full buyer journey, including the checkout. It mimics user behavior or calls APIs in the background to complete the transaction on your site.
Sounds convenient, but here’s the catch:
- You lose visibility
- You lose control over how the checkout behaves
- You lose the ability to upsell, apply loyalty rewards, or optimize the flow
Your checkout becomes a backend call in someone else’s product. That’s not where you want to be.
2. LLMs Execute, Merchants Orchestrate
AI handles the transaction. You stay in control.
This is where Bold steps in.
The AI agent initiates the transaction, but your systems own the checkout flow. The LLM sends API calls to Bold’s headless checkout, and the transaction runs through your rules: your promotions, payment stack, shipping logic, and customer data.
It’s seamless for the user. And powerful for you.
Bold’s checkout endpoints are built for this exact model:
- LLM-native
- Secure, composable, API-first
- Designed to route data cleanly through your tech stack (OMS, CRM, CDP, fulfillment, etc.)
Your customer gets a frictionless checkout. You keep full ownership of the experience.
3. Merchants Own the Full Experience
Full control. Full brand experience. Still powered by AI.
This is the ideal setup for merchants who want to own the agent too. The shopper starts and stays on your site, interacting with an on-site AI agent that you manage.
From product discovery to personalized recommendations and checkout, the entire journey stays inside your environment.
With Bold:
- A lightweight JS plugin captures cart and user data
- Our EPS middleware injects real-time payment, tax, and shipping logic
- Platform integrations push the order wherever it needs to go—OMS, analytics, marketing tools, etc.
The entire transaction happens under your roof, through your brand, with the power of Bold behind it.
What This Means for You
This isn’t a hypothetical. It’s happening now.
AI agents are starting to replace human shoppers, and only checkout systems built for that future will stay relevant. Bold gives you what most platforms can’t: flexible infrastructure to serve autonomous agents without losing brand control.
You can sit back and hope your current flow keeps up.Or you can build for what’s next, and own the path forward.
Let’s talk about powering your Agentic Checkout.
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About the author
Bold Editors
Copywriter
We are a dynamic team of B2B writers and champions of global ecommerce brands.
