Etsy, Inc. ETSY is actively positioning itself at the forefront of the artificial intelligence shift by embracing agentic commerce as a potential driver of incremental traffic and buyer discovery. The marketplace has high brand awareness but has historically lacked consideration for diverse purchase occasions. To bridge this gap, the company is leaning heavily into strategic partnerships with major technology players, including OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google. Early data indicates promising growth in traffic and high-intent engagement from users arriving via agentic search channels.
A notable milestone in this initiative is Etsy’s development of an application in ChatGPT. The move aligns with the broader shift in agentic shopping toward retailer-run applications. Beyond its off-site partnerships, Etsy is also testing conversational AI features directly on its marketplace. The company has built two on-platform agents. The buyer-facing agent functions as a gift assistant designed to simplify product discovery, while the seller-facing agent brings together platform insights to help sellers make better decisions, access relevant resources and reduce operational friction.
Leveraging these advanced modeling capabilities has significantly accelerated the company’s internal development cycles. Iterating on these artificial intelligence features now takes weeks rather than months. While these partnerships and features remain in their earliest stages within a rapidly evolving ecosystem, the early engagement signals validate the company’s approach. By embedding these integrated experiences both on and off the platform, the marketplace aims to capture early intent and transform agentic search into a meaningful long-term discovery catalyst.
How eBay & Shopify Compare With Etsy
eBay Inc. EBAY is also embedding artificial intelligence deeper into its marketplace, but its strategy is centered on enhancing buyer engagement and seller productivity within its own ecosystem. eBay has introduced Agentic Search, expanded AI-powered listing tools and strengthened personalized discovery experiences, with early testing showing higher search engagement and stronger purchase behavior. Rather than focusing on external agentic commerce partnerships, eBay is using AI to reduce marketplace friction, improve listing creation and deepen engagement, positioning eBay to drive incremental growth through a more intelligent shopping experience.
Shopify Inc. SHOP is arguably taking the most aggressive approach toward agentic commerce among e-commerce platforms. Shopify is enabling merchants to sell seamlessly across AI-powered channels such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and Google while advancing the Universal Commerce Protocol to support open agentic commerce. Early results are encouraging, with AI-driven traffic and orders rising sharply as merchants benefit from structured product data and unified commerce infrastructure. By positioning Shopify as the commerce backbone for AI agents, Shopify is aiming to capture long-term growth as conversational shopping becomes increasingly mainstream.