The Office of Experience

Let’s talk about agentic commerce… Agentic storefronts now enable merchants to sell directly inside ChatGPT and other AI platforms. Discovery, consideration, and transaction all happen within a single conversation. Frictionless commerce sounds perfect. But for ecommerce marketers, the cost might be visibility into the customer journey itself. The Promise: Shoppers ask ChatGPT for recommendations, browse real-time inventory, and complete purchases without leaving the chat. Through the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), AI agents handle discount codes, loyalty credentials, and subscription preferences entirely in-conversation. ChatGPT charges a 4% fee on completed sales, while others currently charge nothing. Even without enabling in-chat checkout, products can still surface in AI recommendations—they just link back to the merchant’s site rather than converting in the conversation. The Margin Impact: Right now, merchants can justify the 4% ChatGPT fee as a customer acquisition cost, knowing the next purchase will come through owned channels like email for a fraction of the cost. But if future sales keep flowing through the AI channel instead of directly to your site, that 4% becomes baked into your margin model. What Agentic Commerce Needs to Solve For: Merchants will receive insights into search trends and topics customers are asking about across AI platforms. That’s valuable intelligence—understanding what people are searching for can inform product development and content strategy. But key questions remain about what happens to: ▪️ Individual customer behavior and consideration patterns ▪️ Cross-sell and upsell opportunities during the session ▪️ The ability to guide customers through their decision  ▪️ Cart composition and product bundling insights  ▪️ The chance to connect with customers on a deeper level Traditional ecommerce gives you a relationship with the buyer. You can see how they navigate your site, what questions they have, where they hesitate. You can intervene with chat support, personalized recommendations, or strategic content at the right moment. As agentic commerce scales, how do merchants maintain customer intimacy when the buying journey compresses into aggregated trend data and completed transactions? The Visibility Question: Will ChatGPT prioritize merchants who enable agentic storefront capability? We’ve seen this play out before—Google’s sponsored search results consistently appear above organic listings. OpenAI claims enabling in-chat checkout doesn’t influence product ranking. But when you’re building a commerce channel—not just a discovery tool—incentives shift. If your revenue depends on completed transactions, you’re incentivized to surface products that can convert in-chat over those that send users elsewhere. We’re curious how others are thinking about this. How do you see this playing out? #AgenticCommerce #Ecommerce

Personalized website experiences help you deliver the right content to the right people—whether they're returning customers or active prospects navigating a complex buying journey. AI personalization has been a popular topic over the last several months. What we've found is most B2B leaders know they need it, they're just not sure where to begin. Here are a few practical steps that lead to clean data, clear strategy, and smart implementation. Swipe through → #B2B #DigitalStrategy #CustomerExperience

The best customer experiences adapt to how buyers want to engage. When COVID hit, Mack Trucks and OX created a solution that did exactly that. The Mack Trucks Live Tour lets fleet managers schedule expert-led virtual walkthroughs on their terms, eliminating travel while preserving the personal touch that drives sales. What started as a pandemic solution stuck around because customers loved it. The convenience, time savings, and ability to move faster through the purchasing process made it a permanent part of Mack Trucks' sales approach—proof that meeting customers where they are creates lasting impact. Our Managing Director and Head of Client Strategy Lisa Ferriter and Mack Trucks' VP of Global Brand and Marketing David Galbraith discuss this approach on The Agile Brand Podcast. Read the full story here: https://lnkd.in/g6snXi5e #B2BSales #CustomerExperience #B2BMarketing

Your marketing dashboard says you had a great quarter. But can you answer these questions? → Which channels drove closed revenue (not just leads)? → Is your CAC sustainable, or are you just buying growth? → Which campaigns moved the needle vs. burned budget? → Are marketing and sales aligned, or just pretending? → Are you targeting your actual ICP, or who you wish you could sell to? If you hesitated on any of these, it's time for a strategic audit. We put together a framework that walks through exactly how to assess what's working, what's not, and where your biggest gaps are—with benchmarks so you know how you stack up. https://lnkd.in/g7TPyhsa #B2BMarketing #MarketingStrategy #DemandGen #MarketingROI

Getting executive buy-in for marketing initiatives shouldn't feel like pulling teeth. The problem is most CMOs present marketing activities when executive leadership needs to see business outcomes. Our latest article breaks down how to reframe your marketing strategy as a portfolio of business investments, using the same frameworks finance uses to evaluate opportunities. It includes a practical quadrant model to help you categorize initiatives by complexity and revenue impact, plus the financial metrics that help move the needle with leadership. https://lnkd.in/gWsKerPK #B2BMarketing #MarketingStrategy

B2B Ecommerce in 2026: Where We Think Leaders Will Focus We've been talking to B2B leaders about their ecommerce priorities this year. Here's what keeps coming up and where we feel the focus will remain: 1. Personalization is expected now Buyers want portals that remember their preferences—personalized catalogs, role-based pricing, suggested reorders based on purchase history. If your platform treats every user the same, you may be missing out on revenue. 2. AI is starting to handle repetitive tasks We're seeing increased adoption of AI for quote generation, pricing approvals, and inventory forecasting. The tech is promising, but most companies are still figuring out where it fits. Agentic AI gets a lot of hype, but actual adoption is slower than LinkedIn would have you believe. 3. Composable architecture is becoming the norm Monolithic platforms are continuing to lose their appeal. More teams want the flexibility to integrate best-of-breed tools without a full platform migration. MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless) isn't universal yet, but the shift toward API-first thinking is becoming more prevalent. 4. Mobile-first, not mobile-friendly B2B buyers are approving orders and checking inventory from their phones. Mobile-first is where the bar is now. If your checkout process is clunky on a phone, you're losing deals. 5. Self-service is the baseline Real-time pricing, order status, account management—buyers expect to handle routine tasks themselves. The "call your rep" model doesn't work for everything anymore. B2B is finally catching up to B2C expectations. 6. Zero-click and autonomous commerce are maturing Buyers are getting what they need without having to search for it. IoT sensors trigger automatic replenishment. AEO is helping products surface directly in AI search results. This shift toward autonomous purchasing and inventory management is being refined and scaled by companies that got ahead of it early. The reality is B2B ecommerce expectations are rising, and the gap between what buyers expect and what many companies deliver is widening. What trends do you think will dominate in 2026? And what's on your roadmap this year?

The In-House vs. Agency Dilemma: Making the Right B2B Marketing Investment Rarely, marketing teams can master every discipline: SEO, automation, AI, paid media, ABM—and the list goes on. The specialization required is too deep, and the landscape changes fast. So the question becomes: Where do you build internal capability, and where do strategic agency partnerships make more sense? For many companies, the answer is a hybrid model that gets the best of both. Our latest article breaks down: → Where in-house teams create the most value (and where they hit limits) → When agencies fill gaps vs. when they just add overhead → The signals that your current model isn't scaling → How to build a hybrid approach that works Read the full guide below. #B2BMarketing #MarketingStrategy

Your ecommerce platform should accelerate growth, not prevent it. But how do you know when you need to replatform versus just optimizing what you have? Not every challenge requires replatforming. Sometimes it's implementation, not the platform itself. We break down the key signals so you can make the right call for your business. Read the full article below.

If you're a B2B ecommerce leader, you've probably been told you need "digital transformation." But what does that mean, exactly? And where do you start? The truth is, digital transformation covers everything from replatforming to systems integration to customer experience overhauls. The key is knowing which initiative solves your biggest problem right now. We put together a breakdown to help you figure out where you are—and what comes next. #DigitalTransformation #B2Becommerce #CustomerExperience

Your buyer has already decided, but your sales team doesn’t even know it. Here’s why: 55% of B2B buyers have done a lot or extensive research before making first contact with a vendor. (MarketingCharts) Those same buyers are almost 70% through their purchasing journey before engaging with a seller. (6Sense) And about 80% have already selected their preferred vendor when they finally do reach out to sales. (6Sense) This is a fundamental shift in decision-making that's been moving in the same digital direction for years. Your customers spend far more time in self-education mode than most brands realize. They're consuming content, comparing vendors, gathering requirements, reading reviews, and forming opinions long before they're ready to reach out to sales. The brands that will win in this environment are those constantly innovating new digital experiences that inform buyers when, where, and how they want. If you’re not answering those questions digitally, your competitors are. Is your brand creating digital tools and content that meet buyers where they are in their journey? Or are you waiting for them to connect after they've already decided? The gap between these approaches is where markets are won and lost today. Looking for new ways to meet your customer where they are on their buying journey? Drop me a note. Some simple assessments are a great way to get started.