Forrester's Agentic Commerce Workshop: Are You Asking the Right Questions?

Why Agentic Commerce Is the Business Conversation You Can't Afford to Miss in 2025

Artificial intelligence is no longer just a background tool that powers recommendation engines or chatbots. In 2025, AI has evolved into something far more autonomous, far more consequential, and far more disruptive: agentic AI. And nowhere is this transformation more urgent — or more misunderstood — than in the world of commerce. Forrester Research is addressing this head-on with a dedicated workshop at its upcoming CX Forum events: "Catalyze Agentic Commerce — How To Move From FOMO To Focus."

The workshop, scheduled for Forrester's CX Forum East in New York City and CX Forum West in San Francisco this June, is designed to cut through the noise and help business leaders, technology executives, and customer experience professionals ask the questions that actually matter. Because right now, most organizations are not asking the right ones.

What Is Agentic Commerce, and Why Does It Matter Now?

Agentic commerce refers to commerce transactions, decisions, and interactions that are initiated, managed, or completed by autonomous AI agents — with minimal or no direct human intervention. Unlike traditional e-commerce automation, where rules are predefined and outcomes are predictable, agentic systems can perceive context, reason through options, and take action in real time on behalf of a user or a business.

Think of an AI agent that monitors your inventory levels, negotiates with suppliers, places purchase orders, and updates your fulfillment system — all without a single human click. Or consider a consumer-facing agent that understands a customer's preferences, browses multiple retail platforms, compares prices, and completes a purchase on their behalf. This is not science fiction. These capabilities are being deployed today, and they are reshaping the very architecture of how commerce works.

The stakes are high. According to industry analysts, agentic AI is expected to fundamentally alter customer journeys, supply chain dynamics, and competitive differentiation across virtually every retail and B2B commerce vertical. Companies that understand this shift and build their strategies accordingly will gain a structural advantage. Those that react late — or worse, chase the technology without strategic clarity — risk wasting significant resources while falling further behind.

From FOMO to Focus: The Strategic Challenge Every Organization Faces

The title of Forrester's workshop captures the core tension businesses are experiencing right now: the fear of missing out versus the need for strategic focus. FOMO in the context of agentic commerce is real and widespread. Executives see competitors experimenting with AI agents. They read headlines about autonomous purchasing systems and AI-driven personalization at scale. The pressure to act — to do something, anything — is intense.

But urgency without direction is dangerous. Organizations that rush into agentic commerce initiatives without asking foundational questions risk building systems that create customer friction, expose serious data privacy vulnerabilities, undermine brand trust, or simply fail to deliver measurable business value. The technology is sophisticated, but the strategy must lead the technology — not the other way around.

Forrester's workshop is specifically built to help organizations make this shift from reactive excitement to disciplined strategy. The focus is on equipping participants with the frameworks, questions, and decision-making tools they need to evaluate agentic commerce opportunities with rigor and intention.

What to Expect From the Forrester CX Forum Workshop

Forrester's CX Forum events have long been considered premier destinations for customer experience and commerce professionals looking to stay ahead of industry-defining trends. The addition of a dedicated agentic commerce workshop reflects how central this topic has become to executive agendas in 2025.

Attendees of the "Catalyze Agentic Commerce" workshop can expect a structured, hands-on experience that goes beyond surface-level overviews. The session is designed to help participants:

• Understand the current landscape of agentic AI technologies and their specific applications in commerce contexts, from procurement and fulfillment to customer engagement and post-purchase experiences.
• Identify the critical questions their organizations should be asking before investing in agentic commerce infrastructure, including questions around data governance, customer consent, agent accountability, and integration with existing commerce platforms.
• Evaluate their organization's readiness for agentic commerce adoption, including an honest assessment of technical capabilities, organizational culture, and change management requirements.
• Develop a focused, prioritized roadmap that moves from broad ambition to concrete, high-impact use cases that can be executed with available resources and realistic timelines.
• Learn from Forrester analysts and peer organizations about what early implementations have revealed — what has worked, what has failed, and what lessons can be applied immediately.

The Right Questions Are the Foundation of the Right Strategy

One of the most valuable contributions Forrester can offer in this space is the discipline of asking better questions. In the agentic commerce context, the wrong questions lead to misaligned investments and failed pilots. The right questions create clarity, alignment, and strategic momentum.

Some of the foundational questions organizations should be wrestling with include: Where in the commerce journey does autonomous AI decision-making create genuine value versus create unacceptable risk? How will customers respond when they realize an AI agent — not a human — made a purchasing decision on their behalf? What governance structures need to be in place before an AI agent is authorized to commit financial resources? How do agentic commerce systems interact with existing loyalty programs, pricing engines, and CRM platforms?

These are not purely technical questions. They sit at the intersection of technology, customer psychology, legal compliance, and business model design. Forrester's workshop brings the analytical depth needed to address them seriously.

Why Attending the Forrester CX Forum Workshop Should Be a Priority

For any organization with meaningful commerce operations — whether in B2C retail, B2B procurement, or hybrid digital-physical environments — agentic commerce is not a future trend to monitor passively. It is an active transformation already reshaping competitive dynamics. The organizations building understanding and capability today are the ones that will set the terms of competition tomorrow.

Forrester's CX Forum East in New York City and CX Forum West in San Francisco this June offer a rare opportunity to engage directly with leading analysts, connect with peers navigating the same challenges, and walk away with a sharper, more focused agentic commerce strategy. Whether your organization is just beginning to explore this space or is already running pilots, the "Catalyze Agentic Commerce" workshop is designed to accelerate your thinking and sharpen your execution.

The question is no longer whether agentic commerce will affect your business. The question is whether you are asking the right questions to ensure you are ready when it does.