AI agents to reshape retail, squeeze SaaS & ad spend

Forter has set out a 2026 outlook that links agent-led shopping with higher pressure on retailers' acquisition budgets and a tougher climate for SaaS vendors.

The company, which sells fraud prevention and payment authorisation products, described a shift in consumer discovery as AI agents take a larger role in shopping journeys. It also pointed to market conditions that could reshape retail marketing, investment priorities, and the software sector.

Agentic shopping

Forter said customers will increasingly start shopping with AI agents rather than traditional search. It expects this change to alter how brands win attention and how merchants appear in product discovery.

"In 2026, customers will begin their shopping journeys with agents instead of search bars, marking a fundamental shift in discovery. As agentic ecosystems guide more purchase decisions, merchants will need to rethink how and where they're found. Visibility and discoverability will become the foundation of customer acquisition, and the brands that appear early, accurately, and often in agentic environments will be the ones customers notice first," said Ozge Ozcan, Chief Customer Officer, Forter.

Ozcan said that discovery alone would not determine performance. She pointed to checkout, support, and consistency as differentiators once an agent has directed a shopper to a brand.

"But discovery is only the starting point. The next advantage will come from the factors that follow: the ease of checkout, the speed of support, and the consistency of the experience from start to finish. Retailers that connect visibility with seamless service will earn loyalty in a marketplace where attention is fleeting and trust quickly becomes the most valuable currency," said Ozcan.

Retailers have invested heavily in digital customer experience over the past decade. Forter's comments suggest a new set of technical and commercial questions for merchants and platforms. These include how product data gets indexed by AI assistants, how brand information appears in agent recommendations, and how pricing and fulfilment details stay consistent across channels.

A-Commerce expectations

Ozcan also described A-Commerce as a developing model of autonomous, AI-driven retail. She said service expectations would remain high even as automation increases.

"As autonomous, AI-powered shopping reshapes digital retail, A-commerce is redefining what customers expect from brands. Change is happening faster than ever, with new tools, behaviours, and buying patterns emerging almost overnight.

"Yet even as automation transforms how people shop, expectations for service, personalisation, and care remain at an all-time high. The next era of retail will demand both agility and empathy. In 2026, the brands that succeed will move quickly to adopt new technologies while preserving the quality of experience customers trust them for. In the A-commerce era, convenience alone won't win without consistency, service, and speed moving in lockstep," said Ozcan.

Her comments place customer service and operational delivery alongside marketing visibility. That approach also matches a wider trend in online commerce where returns, chargebacks, and customer disputes can affect margins and brand reputation.

SaaS pressure

Forter's marketing leadership expects a difficult year for many younger software vendors as buyers slow down experimentation after earlier waves of AI pilots.

"In 2026, we're going to see a significant volume of young startups - yes, even those in AI - struggling as buyers focus on tests with partners they selected in 2025, rather than taking on every new AI use case. This will put young SaaS companies in a challenging spot, given high valuations and unstable growth, and we can expect to see a flurry of M&A activity as well as shutdowns. For more established players, profitability will be the focus, but those that cannot reach the right balance of profitability and growth will struggle to maintain investor focus, and pressure will mount to recoup initial investments. All buyers should be asking tough questions about company performance, and while everyone is focused on cost, there's often a risk trade-off for low cost, so go beyond the typical feature focus on an evaluation," said Jason Grunberg, CMO, Forter.

Many retailers and consumer-facing platforms rely on a large number of SaaS tools across payments, identity, customer service, marketing, inventory, and fraud management. A market shakeout could change procurement strategies, contract terms, and product roadmaps, particularly where retailers depend on smaller providers for specialised functions.

AI ads

Grunberg also predicted pressure on AI search and assistant providers to expand revenue streams through paid marketing.

"While social platforms were given a long runway to demonstrate profitability, companies like OpenAI and Perplexity are going to be under pressure to start diversifying revenue models specifically through paid marketing to give signals that they have the potential to scale to the size of tech "big 4." While there's been resistance to adopt these practices, it's inevitable and will come quickly," said Grunberg.

If AI engines adopt paid placements or related models, retailers could face another shift in how they buy media and manage attribution. It could also influence how brands balance performance marketing, marketplaces, and direct channels.

Peak season

Grunberg linked marketing cost pressures to political advertising and macroeconomic factors. He said election-related spend could change the pricing of digital inventory and influence acquisition strategies.

"Brands will see decreased frequency from retained customers, leading to the need to increase acquisition, but mid-term elections will set another record for advertising spending, having a large impact on new customer acquisition. Mid-term election spending for social influencer endorsements will see a huge spike, making it even more expensive for brands to acquire new customers through this channel," said Grunberg.

Forter's outlook suggests retailers will enter 2026 with a more complex set of trade-offs across discovery, service delivery, and marketing efficiency, alongside tighter scrutiny of technology suppliers and their financial stability.