Deloitte: AI agents will go shopping on behalf of Asian consumers
Across Southeast Asia a new behavior is becoming habit: instead of browsing marketplaces, consumers open ChatGPT or Gemini, type what they need and get back a pre-filtered list - whichever brand gets named wins before the customer ever touches a website.
Deloitte's report "The future of commerce: Agentic shopping in Asia Pacific" (April 14, 2026) lands a striking set of numbers: 29% of APAC consumer businesses already apply agentic AI, expected to hit 76% within 2 years; nearly 3 in 4 APAC consumers already use AI to discover, compare and research products; 9 in 10 retail leaders believe AI will overtake traditional search engines during 2026. Deloitte estimates that by 2030 agents could influence 25% of global e-commerce revenue. For Vietnamese retail, the algorithm is becoming the storefront.
What does the Deloitte report say?
Surveying retail leaders and consumers in Australia, India, Japan and Singapore, Deloitte finds agentic AI past the exploration stage: 29% of consumer businesses have deployed it, and businesses expect the figure to reach 76% within just 2 years. Half of the leaders surveyed believe today's multi-step purchase journey (search - compare - visit - order) will collapse into a single agent-driven step as early as 2027. The report is also careful: 2 in 3 retail leaders do not expect customers to fully hand purchasing authority to agents before 2028 - for now agents mostly find and suggest, while humans still press pay.
Southeast Asia: the algorithm becomes the storefront
Regional retail observers name the phenomenon outright. Inside Retail Asia (July 6, 2026) describes consumers in Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore as already "trained" by Shopee, TikTok Shop and Lazada to expect personalized suggestions by default - switching to asking AI is only a matter of time. The competition then moves from the storefront to the answer: AI names 2-3 brands, and the rest turn near-invisible. Being named becomes the new battleground, exactly the zero-click picture painted by Google's AI Overviews.
Chạm AI's take: 2 things Vietnamese retail should do now
One, make AI know and describe your brand correctly: clean product data, GEO-standard structured content, full schema - starting with checking what ChatGPT says about your brand and scoring your website with the free SEO + GEO Audit tool. Two, invest in what agents cannot replace: the in-store experience - space, product trials, human advice - because once AI compresses the "find and compare" phase, the physical store becomes the only place a brand is felt directly. That is the phygital logic we analyzed in retail space design in the AI era: digitize to be found, physicalize to be remembered.
Sources: Deloitte - "The future of commerce: Agentic shopping in Asia Pacific", published April 14, 2026, surveyed in Australia, India, Japan, Singapore · Inside Retail Asia, July 6, 2026. APAC regional figures, offered as reference for the Vietnamese market.
Frequently asked questions
What is agentic commerce (AI shopping agents)?
A model where an AI agent gradually performs the shopping steps on the user's behalf: finding, comparing, choosing and eventually placing authorized orders. Instead of browsing a marketplace, users describe their need to ChatGPT, Gemini or a retailer's assistant and receive a pre-filtered shortlist.
What does the 2026 Deloitte report forecast for AI agents in retail?
The report (April 14, 2026) finds 29% of APAC consumer businesses already applying agentic AI, expected to reach 76% within 2 years; nearly 3 in 4 consumers already use AI to discover and compare products; 9 in 10 retail leaders believe AI will overtake search engines during 2026; and by 2030 agents could influence 25% of global e-commerce revenue.
What should Vietnamese retailers prepare?
Two parallel moves: make AI able to name and recommend your brand (clean product data, GEO-standard content, schema) and strengthen the physical touchpoints agents cannot replace - in-store experience, product trials, human advice. That is precisely the phygital problem.