WE are entering the biggest transformation in digital commerce since the rise of social media — and most Caribbean businesses are nowhere near ready for it.

This shift is called agentic shopping, and it changes everything about how people discover, research, and buy products online. For the first time in history, customers are no longer doing the heavy lifting in the buying journey. AI tools are now taking over the entire process.

In the old world, consumers researched products manually. They browsed Google, looked at websites, watched YouTube reviews, read Reddit threads, checked prices, compared features, and then made a decision.

In the new world, consumers simply tell an AI assistant what they want, and the agent does the rest.

If you haven’t seen this first-hand, here is what agentic shopping looks like today:

A customer says, “I need a birthday gift for a 7-year-old girl under US$50.”

The AI searches across multiple stores, compares options, checks reviews, summarises pros and cons, checks stock levels, applies available discounts, fills the shopping cart and — thanks to new partnerships — even completes the checkout using PayPal, Google Pay or Shopify integrations.

This is not the future.

This is live.

OpenAI has partnered with PayPal and Shopify to enable in-app checkout directly inside ChatGPT. Google has launched agentic shopping features inside search and Gemini, where the AI can call local stores to confirm inventory and complete purchases through Google Pay. Amazon has deployed its own shopping assistant, Rufus, to provide intelligent product comparisons using decades of review data.

The global tech giants have all moved in the same direction: AI is becoming the primary shopping assistant for billions of people.

And here’s the part Caribbean businesses need to pay attention to: AI does not pull data from Instagram posts, TikTok videos or WhatsApp flyers. AI citations — the sources the systems rely on when making recommendations — come from:

•websites

•product pages

•structured data

•blogs

•YouTube reviews

•comparison articles

•verified policies and descriptions

In other words, AI shows consumers the businesses that have machine-readable information, not the ones trying to go viral on social media.

A perfect example of this new behaviour came from a recent AI search conducted specifically for Trinidad and Tobago. When someone searched for “roti,” one of the top prompts inside
ChatGPT was: “Roti catering services for events in Trinidad and Tobago.”

This single query reveals more than any Google keyword ever could. It shows that the customer is not just looking for roti — they want catering, for an event, in a specific country, and they are ready to buy. This is deep, context-rich intent.

But here’s the painful truth:

Most Caribbean businesses are unprepared to appear in these AI-driven conversations.

The region has spent more than a decade building its digital presence around social media — Instagram pages instead of websites, boosted posts instead of content ecosystems, influencers instead of search optimisation. Meanwhile, the rest of the world invested in websites, blogs, structured catalogues, modern payment systems and digital infrastructure.

This is why Caribbean businesses rarely show up when AI tools answer local or international queries.

To appear in agentic shopping results, businesses need:

•a real website

•clear, structured descriptions of products and services

•updated business information

•pricing and policies published online

•modern payment systems like PayPal or Stripe

•content that answers the real questions people ask

•YouTube videos or articles that AI can cite

•accurate catalogues that machines can read

Without these elements, AI cannot recommend your business — even to someone two streets away who wants exactly what you sell.

This is the most important point:

If AI cannot read you, it cannot recommend you.

If it cannot recommend you, it cannot help customers buy from you.

As AI becomes the new “first touch” in the buying journey, sales teams will see fewer questions at the top of the funnel. The agent will do the early education. The agent will compare options. The agent will validate the decision. The agent will push the customer toward checkout.

Human sales teams will still play a role — but later, for complex issues or support.

Marketing will also undergo a fundamental shift. Caribbean marketers will need new skills:

•understanding LLM search behaviour

•researching the prompts customers ask inside AI tools

•designing content that AI assistants can extract and cite

•optimising for answer engines, not just search engines

•structuring business information for machines, not just people

Marketing becomes less about “posting content” and more about creating data that AI systems can trust.

And this is why the region must act now.

For the first time in digital history, we’re entering a world where AI, not humans, drives the research and decision phase of the buying journey. Businesses that understand this shift will thrive. Those that continue relying solely on social media will struggle to be found at the very moment customers are ready to buy.

Agentic shopping will change digital business forever — the question is whether Caribbean businesses will evolve with it, or be left invisible in the world’s new search economy.

Keron Rose is a Caribbean-based digital strategist and digital nomad currently living in Thailand.He helps entrepreneurs across the region build their digital presence, monetise their platforms and tap into global opportunities.

Through his content and experiences in Asia, Rose shares real-world insights to help the Caribbean think bigger and move smarter in the digital age.Listen to the Digipreneur FM podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

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