Zero-click commerce: AI agents set to intermediate $15 trillion in B2B purchases by 2028

A Gartner forecast cited by commercetools puts a concrete number on B2B commerce's near-term transformation: AI agents will intermediate $15 trillion in business purchases by 2028. That single projection encapsulates a structural shift in which entire procurement cycles, supplier identification, option evaluation, order execution, may complete without a human buyer ever navigating a vendor's website.

From digital storefront to machine-readable data asset

Agentic commerce, AI systems that act autonomously on a buyer's behalf, threatens to bypass the traditional digital storefront entirely. In practical terms, a procurement AI working for a manufacturing firm could identify, compare, and order industrial components from an optimal supplier without anyone on the buying team touching a browser. The vendor that wins that order is the one whose catalog data, pricing structures, and credibility signals are legible to the agent, not necessarily the one with the most polished website.

This dynamic gives rise to what analysts call zero-click commerce: a category-level shift in which the click, historically the atomic unit of digital retail measurement, ceases to be the defining event in a purchase journey. Commercetools identifies Answer Engine Optimization, or AEO, as an essential discipline for sellers operating in this environment, requiring them to structure product data and technical documentation so AI systems can accurately surface their offerings inside automated decision flows.

The discipline differs meaningfully from conventional search engine optimization. SEO is designed to attract and persuade human readers scanning a results page; AEO targets machine-readable formats, standardized taxonomies, and clean API surfaces. For B2B organizations that have spent years refining keyword strategies and conversion-rate optimization for human visitors, that pivot represents a significant operational reorientation.

AI-referred traffic is already outperforming traditional sources

While the $15 trillion figure describes a 2028 horizon, Adobe Digital Insights data shows that AI-driven commerce influence is already measurable today. As of March 2026, AI-referred visitors to retailers' websites converted 42% more often than traffic from non-AI sources, according to Digital Commerce 360's reporting on Adobe's findings, a full reversal from one year earlier, when AI-source visitors were converting at nearly half the rate of their non-AI peers.

Adobe also found that AI-associated visitors were 12% less likely to bounce, viewed 13% more pages per visit, and generated revenue per visit that was 37% higher than non-AI traffic. The volume driving those metrics is substantial: AI-associated traffic to retail sites grew 393% year over year in the first quarter of 2026, according to Adobe, though that figure was down from the 673% year-over-year surge recorded in December 2025.

Adobe's survey data adds a behavioral dimension to the engagement numbers: 69% of consumers who bought with AI assistance said they were less likely to return the item. Higher purchase confidence and lower return rates together improve unit economics for retailers, a compounding effect that strengthens the commercial case for AI-readiness investments.

Adoption is accelerating, but maturity remains low

Enterprise AI deployment in commerce has shifted from exploration to execution. According to Creatuity's compilation of research from McKinsey, Gartner, Salesforce, and others, 72% of organizations reported adopting AI in at least one business function in 2025, up from 55% in 2023. Within B2B commerce specifically, 65% of companies are using or piloting AI for pricing, recommendations, search, or personalization, per Salesforce's 2025 State of Commerce report.

Despite the deployment surge, Boston Consulting Group's 2025 research, cited by Creatuity, finds that only 18% of B2B companies describe their AI commerce maturity as advanced. That gap between broad adoption and deep capability means the majority of organizations remain early enough in the cycle to build a meaningful competitive edge, but also exposed to faster-moving competitors who are further along.

Buyer behavior is reinforcing the urgency

The buyer side of the equation is accelerating the pressure on sellers. The Digital Sales Institute reports that 94% of B2B buyers now use generative AI as a core research tool, and 61% prefer a rep-free buying experience, citing frustration with irrelevant outreach. Gartner data included in the same report notes that 73% of buyers are willing to place orders exceeding $50,000 through self-service channels.

Creatuity's data reinforces the self-service trend: 67% of B2B buyers prefer self-service portals over sales rep interaction for routine reorders and product information, per Salesforce's 2024 State of the Connected Customer survey. Meanwhile, 54% say they would switch suppliers for a better digital purchasing experience, a churn risk that makes infrastructure investment directly revenue-relevant.

The combined picture from these data points is one of compounding pressure: buyers are increasingly AI-assisted and self-directed, AI agents are beginning to execute transactions autonomously, and the $15 trillion procurement volume Gartner projects for 2028 will flow toward sellers whose product data, pricing architecture, and commerce infrastructure are built for machine consumption, not just human browsing.

What B2B operators need to prioritize now

Commercetools and analysts tracking the agentic commerce shift point to a consistent set of near-term priorities: clean, complete, and machine-readable product catalog data; standardized taxonomies; and API surfaces that allow AI systems to programmatically access pricing and inventory. These are foundational prerequisites, not future roadmap items, for sellers who want to appear in AI-driven procurement recommendation flows.

Building an AEO strategy alongside existing SEO programs lets organizations maintain current traffic while developing the capabilities needed for AI-mediated discovery. The two disciplines overlap in their emphasis on authoritative, accurate content, but diverge sharply in formatting and distribution requirements. Organizations that defer the AEO investment until agentic commerce is fully mature risk ceding purchasing volume to competitors whose infrastructure is already legible to the agents making the decisions.