How AI agents will reshape shopping and loyalty in Australia and New Zealand
By Jonathan Reeve, Vice President, APAC, Eagle Eye
It feels like almost every medium to large enterprise across Asia-Pacific (and the globe) is making some effort to explore Artificial Intelligence (AI) programs and projects. While such projects might vary in complexity, organisations are feeling the need to do ‘something’ with AI, lest they be left behind in a new technology race.
The artificial intelligence landscape has changed markedly in a short time. When it comes to large language models (LLMs), we’ve witnessed their capabilities grow rapidly, to the point where they are performing beyond pattern-based text recognition.
The well-known LLM’s out there, from the likes of OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Meta and xAI are becoming systems that can take action in the world, search the internet, and make informed decisions.
AI agents are poised to become part of everyday life. Google’s Gemini helps plan your week, while OpenAI’s voice assistants manage tasks through natural conversation.
A wave of startups and innovators are already building AI agent solutions for specific business needs using foundation models from leading providers.
Previously limited to their own data, these models now incorporate additional information and capabilities through special APIs and developments like Model Context Protocol (MCP), creating reliable connections to external sources.
Transforming Retail Experiences
So, now that AI agents are here, what does it mean for retail? These developments signal a major shift in how brands might go to market. The marriage of AI and retail loyalty makes a lot of sense. Eagle Eye, for example, already has a powerful AI-driven personalisation engine and other predictive systems, which thrive on ingesting and processing data intelligently.
In addition to being able to ask questions, AI agent helpers can make decisions, compare prices and steer people to where to shop. This stands to change how retailers reach customers.
Just think about how much share of research LLMs have already taken away from traditional search engines. In early May this year, a senior Apple executive reportedly said that Google searches on the Safari web browser had fallen over the prior two months. A trend unseen for two decades.
People are absolutely using their LLM of choice to ask about the top products and make purchasing decisions. As agents become more capable, they’ll be able to provide the most up-to-date information, provide a button to make the purchase and arrange shipping, shop around for better prices and more.
Consider this scenario: a customer asks their AI assistant, “Where can I unlock behind-the-scenes content as a member?” If your program’s benefits can’t be found and understood by that assistant, you’ll be excluded from consideration.
AI agents, personal shoppers and deal-hunting assistants will change how brands promote their products and offers. The way large language models and agents process information will likely lead to a reorganisation of marketing strategies and loyalty structures.
Let’s explore what we think they might be.
Four Ways AI Agents Will Reshape Retail Loyalty Programs
1. The Rise of the Personal Loyalty Concierge
Most loyalty programs today require customer effort; browsing offers, tracking points, redeeming rewards. AI agents reverse this dynamic. Acting as personal concierges, they understand your preferences, track rewards across programs, and proactively suggest ways to maximise benefits while shopping.
Retailers with discoverable, agent-friendly propositions will capture attention and share of wallet. Those with complex, obscured systems will find themselves ignored by both agents and the customers who rely on them.
2. Mass-Market Offers Become Financially Unsustainable
Blanket promotions available to all customers will become even less viable in an agent-driven marketplace. AI agents are built to optimise for value, identifying and exploiting the most generous public offers. This cherry-picking erodes margins and will render mass offers increasingly unprofitable.
The shift to personalised offers, visible only to the intended recipient, is already underway but will accelerate with AI agents. Retailers who fail to make this transition risk significant financial exposure from outdated promotional strategies.
3. A New Era of Offer Optimisation
AI agents necessitate a step-change in how offers are structured and delivered. Offers must be real-time, personalised, and API-accessible for easy evaluation by AI assistants. Loyalty programs will need to evolve to support dynamic offer issuance, individual targeting, and instant redemption.
This requires more than surface-level changes. The underlying technologies that power loyalty programs must be rebuilt for an age where AI intermediaries might evaluate thousands of offers per second to find the best fit for their human users.
4. Trust and Transparency Become the Currency
As AI agents mediate interactions, retailers won’t just sell to customers, they’ll negotiate with algorithms. Simplicity and genuine value will be rewarded, while complexity and trickery will be filtered out. Clear, fair loyalty programs will build the trust needed for this new landscape.
Programs designed to confuse or lock in customers through obscure terms will struggle as AI agents highlight better alternatives. Transparency will become mandatory, not optional.
Opportunity and Challenges
The way AI agents will alter the retail landscape in Australia and New Zealand presents an exciting opportunity, one that hasn’t gone unnoticed by the industry and thought leaders keeping an ever watchful eye on the sector.
For example, Dr Jason Pallant, Senior Lecturer of Marketing at RMIT, says he is intrigued by AI agents because of how they may empower consumers to tailor their shopping experience, as well as how brands will leverage this further with loyalty.
“We know consumers now want, and even expect, tech and AI to help them navigate purchase decisions, particularly complex ones,” he says.
“AI agents could be a really effective way to do that, helping consumers leverage AI insights without needing prompting skills. The opportunity for brands that get it right could be highly personalised and engaging shopping assistants delivered at scale. That’s the promise and potential at least.”
Pallant also notes however that brands will need to rethink how they interact with customers vs with agents to ensure both are nurtured correctly.
“Consumers still desire human interaction, particularly for complex purchases, and this actually increases the more technology advances,” he says.
“Just look at complaints around chatbots that lock consumers in and won’t let them talk to humans. More ‘intelligent’ agents might simulate that human interaction better but there’s still a level of technology in the middle.
“That interaction can also create a ‘black box’ effect, particularly with agents, where it’s not always clear to consumers where an answer has come from or why. Brands need to make sure they stay transparent throughout the process to maintain consumer trust.”
As with all technologies there can be upsides and downsides, which need to be navigated by brands to ensure they are maximising the good and not forgetting their customers.
“While AI agents might increase engagement and personalisation at scale, they risk losing the human element and competitive advantage of the brand if not used strategically,” Pallant says.
Digital Connections and Preparing for Change
This is really going to rock the world of retail, brand and marketing. We talked about how brands that aren’t surfaced by LLMs stand to lose market share, so it’s important that brands are rethinking their messaging and building digital connections with customers.
In the retail loyalty space, these connections will require a backend that can process loyalty transactions in real-time, deliver personalised offers at moments of decision, communicate seamlessly with AI systems through standardised protocols, and adapt rapidly as agent capabilities expand.
Putting together a stack like this could very well represent a pretty big transformation. Companies that invest now are more likely to secure a strong position in the emerging AI-mediated shopping experience.
In taking first steps toward preparing for AI agents in retail, savvy Australian and New Zealand retailers should audit their loyalty offerings for AI discoverability. Furthermore, businesses should look at rebuilding promotion engines for personalisation at scale, creating clear API docs for AI integration, and testing systems with early consumer AI agents.
Remember, getting into a good position on AI isn’t just about money. In the case of agentic AI, retailers will succeed if they understand how agents evaluate and present options to consumers, remember that behind the agents are humans who both demand efficiency and occasional acknowledgement, and design their loyalty experiences accordingly.
