Microsoft is introducing new agentic AI solutions for retail, enabling personalized shopping experiences, smarter product discovery, and streamlined store operations. The personalized shopping agent template in Copilot Studio provides a fully customizable framework for retailers to tailor experiences, offering real-time, context-aware product discovery and recommendations. It includes advanced features like outfit building, giving retailers the ability to create unique customer journeys. These solutions are part of Microsoft’s broader strategy to bring intelligent automation to every facet of retail, helping businesses move faster, serve customers more effectively, and operate with greater resilience and efficiency.
The catalog enrichment agent template in Copilot Studio extracts product attributes from images, enhances them with social insights, and automates tasks such as onboarding. This transforms raw data into structured, enriched information that powers discovery and recommendations. By automating catalog tasks, retailers can focus on delivering dynamic, personalized experiences, as demonstrated by Guess, which leverages this tool to provide real-time style recommendations and complete looks for shoppers.
The store operations agent template equips store associates with intuitive assistance, managing workflows and offering context-aware suggestions. It aids leaders in making quicker decisions by analyzing trends, foot traffic, and external factors such as weather and local events. This solution addresses the retail industry’s challenges with high turnover and staff shortages by providing employees with accessible digital tools, enabling them to serve customers more efficiently and effectively.
Retailers can explore these solutions in the Microsoft Marketplace and learn more about Microsoft for Retail. They can also experience these tools at NRF 2026, booth #4503. Microsoft’s commitment to responsible AI deployment ensures that these innovations are broadly accessible, empowering retailers to achieve more while maintaining trust and accuracy.
Agentic Commerce: Turning Inspiration into Action
Microsoft’s new solutions aim to transform the retail experience by linking brand engagement with seamless checkout. Copilot Checkout, now available in the U.S., allows shoppers to purchase products directly within Copilot conversations without redirects. This feature is supported by partners like PayPal, Shopify, and Stripe, and includes retailers such as Urban Outfitters, Anthropologie, Ashley Furniture, and Etsy sellers. Adobe’s recent report highlights the growing importance of AI in ecommerce, with AI-driven traffic for the 2025 holiday season surging by 693% compared to 2024, showing the need for frictionless checkout experiences.
Etsy’s integration with Copilot Checkout enables its sellers to connect with high-intent buyers effortlessly, maintaining a personal touch in commerce. Shopify merchants will be automatically enrolled in Copilot Checkout, simplifying the journey from intent to transaction. This approach, termed “Agentic Storefronts,” focuses on personalization, trust, speed, and convenience, ensuring merchants remain the merchant of record while enhancing the customer experience.
Empowering Retailers and Enhancing Operations
Microsoft introduces Brand Agents and the personalized shopping agent template to facilitate conversational shopping experiences. Brand Agents, available for Shopify merchants, enables brands to engage customers in natural, brand-aligned conversations with minimal setup. The personalized shopping agent template offers deeper customization, including outfit building, to create distinctive shopping journeys. These tools help retailers guide customers, boost engagement, and drive conversions while maintaining their unique brand voice.
This tool improves discovery and recommendations, as demonstrated by Guess, which uses it to provide dynamic, personalized shopping experiences. For store operations, Microsoft’s agentic AI offers intuitive assistance to associates, analyzing trends and external factors to optimize staffing and operational priorities. By autonomously orchestrating workflows and flagging exceptions, it helps leaders make smarter, faster decisions.
