Agents are moving into commerce. With Instinct, Dots and Meta's Muse, they are making buying decisions for people.
Agents are moving into commerce. With Instinct, Dots and Meta's Muse, they are making buying decisions for people.
On Marketing Against the Grain, HubSpot's Kieran Flanagan says agents aren't just doing research. They're buying. Stripe's data shows purchases through Link, the wallet personal agents use to pay, are up 38x. An agent that reads your page sees none of your ads, says Parallel CEO Parag Agrawal, and his company is building a way to pay publishers anyway. The buying only works if people hand over the card. On Equity, not everyone is ready.
Agents are the next consumer. They read everything, see no ads, and buy when someone trusts them with the card. Brands need to be the answer the agent picks. Agents need to earn the card.
Sources: Kipp Bodnar and Kieran Flanagan (HubSpot), Marketing Against the Grain, "We Tested What AI Personal Assistants Can Actually Do," Oct 6, 2026. Parag Agrawal (Parallel), 20VC, "Five Predictions for a World of Agents | The Ads Business Model Will Die," Sep 26, 2026. Equity, "Amazon drops data center NDAs, and AI agents want your credit card," Oct 9, 2026.