New Research Reveals 80% of CPG Leaders Plan to Shift Budget to AI Agents to Address Scaling Limits of Traditional Agencies and Tools

Challenges with data actionability and the limits of scaling traditional agency services are cited as the top performance issues

PALO ALTO, CA — As ecommerce teams face continued pressure to scale their commerce operations across more retailers, more SKUs, and agentic shopper tools, new market research points to a broader shift in how brands plan to manage digital commerce.

Recent data from leading agentic retail platform CommerceIQ, based on a survey of 240 CPG leaders across more than 10 categories, points to mounting challenges with existing approaches. Respondents cited data-related issues as their top performance constraint, with 46% saying their data is not actionable and 42% saying it takes too long to make decisions. More than half also said agency costs are too high relative to results, while 80% reported they are open to shifting budget toward AI-driven solutions.

What is emerging instead is an execution-driven approach to commerce, often referred to as agentic retail, where AI is embedded directly into day-to-day ecommerce operations. Rather than surfacing insights for teams to act on later, systems are beginning to monitor performance, identify opportunities, and take action across digital shelf, retail media, and content in real time. In the survey, 71% percent of business leaders stated they were very familiar with agentic retail and 82% cited increasing investments in the coming year.

“The current operating model isn’t failing due to a lack of effort; it is structurally mismatched to the reality of algorithmic commerce. While human teams operate on weekly review cycles, algorithms are shifting buy box ownership by the hour and adjusting retail media bids in milliseconds,” said Guru Hariharan, CEO of CommerceIQ. “This isn’t a gap that can be closed with more headcount or harder work. It requires a fundamental shift to AI Agents that can execute at the speed of the algorithm.”

CommerceIQ’s recent introduction of retail AI agents for sales, media, content and the digital shelf reflects this broader movement, as brands begin to apply AI to repetitive, day-to-day ecommerce work that has traditionally been manual or agency-driven. These systems operate within brand-defined guardrails, with clear oversight into the rationale for optimizations, allowing teams to stay in control while significantly increasing the speed and scale of execution. At the same time, CPG brands are approaching adoption thoughtfully. Survey findings show that leaders want greater transparency, data trust, and a unified view of the business before fully shifting to AI-driven systems.

Early results suggest the impact is significant. In live deployments, CommerceIQ customers have seen 10x to more than 100x improvements in task speed and optimization volume compared to traditional workflows. One example is Newell Brands, a global consumer products company with brands such as Sharpie, Rubbermaid, Graco and Coleman. Newell Brands has worked with CommerceIQ to build a custom AI Content Agent in under 80 days, automating a previously manual process and delivering a 40x improvement in time saved.

As the industry prepares to gather at Shoptalk Spring 2026, these changes are becoming a central focus for ecommerce and retail leaders. CommerceIQ will be part of that conversation, including an Innovation Session featuring Co-Founder and SVP of Product Himanshu Jain alongside Newell Brands, focused on how AI is reshaping product discovery and execution.

CommerceIQ will be onsite at Shoptalk (March 24–26, Las Vegas) at booth #781 meeting with brands, retailers, and partners to discuss the evolving role of AI in ecommerce operations.

About CommerceIQ

The CommerceIQ Agentic retail platform powers profitable digital commerce growth for 2,200+ of the world’s leading brands with AI agents for retail media, sales, content and the digital shelf. Built on a unified view of your business, CommerceIQ continuously analyzes performance to deliver real-time, actionable insights, provide recommendations, and automate workflows that improve share of search, maximize media ROI, and boost incremental sales. Proven to deliver 10-100x the efficiency of traditional agencies, CommerceIQ is trusted by the world’s top brands and a global network of 1,450+ partners. To learn more or request a demo, visit commerceiq.ai.