Morgan Stanley: Nearly half of online shoppers will use AI agents by 2030, adding $115 billion to US e-commerce (www.businessinsider.com)

Morgan Stanley forecasts that “agentic commerce” — AI-powered shopping agents that can recommend products, compare prices, manage orders and even take actions on behalf of users — will be used by nearly half of US online shoppers by 2030 and could add roughly $115 billion to US e-commerce. The bank highlights early signals from retailers rolling out assistants (Amazon’s Rufus, Walmart’s Sparky, Target’s ChatGPT integration) and platform moves from OpenAI and Google to add shopping-research and calling capabilities, arguing that personalized grocery shopping (followed by household goods, personal care and apparel) is a major unlock for broader adoption. For the AI/ML community this is a signal to prioritize robust, multi-modal agent capabilities, real-time data integration, personalization and safety/UX improvements: agents must do more than chat — they need reliable retrieval, transaction orchestration, inventory and price-aware decision-making, and tight privacy and fraud protections. The shift also has ecosystem-level implications (reshaping the e‑commerce funnel, changing digital ad dynamics, new offline/online integrations) and highlights commercial ROI: Amazon says Rufus is already contributing materially to sales and profit prospects, underscoring a near-term business case for production-grade agentic systems.