Enterprise commerce has always been a high-stakes juggling act. Global supply chains, multi-level approvals and high-volume transactions put constant pressure on human teams. Every misstep can ripple across operations, affecting everything from customer satisfaction to financial performance.
Enter agentic AI. This new wave of autonomous systems acts on context, makes decisions and executes operations at scale, offering enterprises a way to turn complexity into something more manageable.
Adoption is already widespread: 79 percent of business leaders report that their organizations are using AI agents in some capacity, according to a PwC survey.
VTEX, a digital commerce platform for enterprise brands and retailers, is among the companies deploying this technology to help streamline complex operations.
Newsweek Illustration/Canva/VTEX
“Agentic commerce is the next stage of enterprise systems – intelligent infrastructure that interprets context, makes governed decisions and acts with autonomy at scale,” Mariano Gomide de Faria, founder and co-CEO of VTEX, told Newsweek.
Unlike traditional automation, these systems are designed to act more independently while still following company policies, allowing enterprises to shift routine work away from human teams.
PwC’s survey notes that among companies adopting AI agents, 66 percent cite increased productivity, 55 percent report faster decision-making and 54 percent note improved customer experience.
Autonomous Agents in Action
VTEX has rolled out three specialized AI agents across customer service, storefront updates and data insights.
“VTEX Agentic AI manages key functions like resolving customer service requests, enriching product catalogs, running multivariate tests on campaigns and highlighting where operations lag or margins are at risk,” Gomide de Faria said.
The company’s Customer Service Agent, which was built on capabilities from the company’s Weni AI acquisition back in 2024, autonomously resolves tickets across WhatsApp, Instagram, SMS and web chat, handling inquiries such as order status, returns, catalog clarifications, subscriptions and account changes.
Gomide de Faria said it already handles about 92 percent of standard requests without human input.
“Enterprise commerce never stops. Consumers and corporate buyers expect personalization, procurement teams require compliance, and customer service volumes keep rising,” he said.
Human teams step in only for complex cases, allowing resources to focus where judgment is truly needed. Quality is maintained through governance, training on company policies and audit trails that ensure transparency and accountability.
The Visual Editor Agent is designed to streamline storefront updates. Marketing and regional leads can implement changes directly using natural language prompts or Figma files, without requiring IT intervention.
“In practice, marketers or regional leads can prompt storefront changes without submitting IT tickets. The agent reads catalog APIs, applies brand templates and publishes updates within governance rules,” Gomide de Faria explained.
This enables marketing, sales and engineering teams to work in parallel, with engineering safeguarding structure, marketing driving expression and sales benefiting from faster execution.
Finally, the company’s Data Insights Agent illustrates a broader trend: moving from static dashboards toward AI systems that surface next steps. It highlights which accounts to prioritize, points to campaigns likely to drive revenue efficiently and flags areas where margins are slipping. For global enterprises, it can model exposure to tariffs or compliance changes, enabling proactive adjustments in pricing, inventory and routing.
“It tells you not just how a category performed but which account to prioritize, which campaign will move revenue with the least friction and where margin is leaking,” Gomide de Faria said.
The system reflects common goals for AI in enterprise commerce: precision, speed and adaptability.
“Precision builds trust by making every move explainable. Speed makes commerce competitive. Adaptability ensures resilience against shocks. Together, VTEX AI agents allow enterprises to move from reporting on the past to orchestrating the next best move in real time,” he said.
Tackling B2B Complexity
Large business-to-business (B2B) transactions present unique challenges. Orders with hundreds of line items, custom pricing and multi-level approvals can overwhelm legacy systems.
Gomide de Faria said the biggest blocker isn’t just outdated technology but infrastructure like monolithic enterprise resource planning platforms and spreadsheet-driven workflows that cannot manage modern enterprise complexity.
Clients such as Stanley Black & Decker rely on VTEX to streamline bulk ordering and contract pricing, which cuts manual effort and error rates across its distributor network.
Gomide de Faria told Newsweek that another client, bisco industries, “built a B2B marketplace with more than four million products, creating a collaborative commerce ecosystem that connects buyers and suppliers at scale.”
Observability, governance and scalability are increasingly emphasized to make sure orders of all sizes are executed accurately and compliantly.
AI as a Strategic Partner
Like many enterprise AI initiatives, these agents are positioned to complement human teams rather than replace them. By automating repetitive tasks, agentic AI allows employees to focus on higher-value decisions, strategy and cross-team collaboration.
“What we are starting to see is that agentic AI connects teams across functions, helping marketing, sales, supply chain and finance see the same operational truth in real time,” Gomide de Faria said. “Different functions gain a shared fluency in the data and workflows, which strengthens alignment and decision-making across the enterprise.”
Agentic AI is emerging as a potential next stage of enterprise commerce, blending automation with human decision-making. Across customer service, marketing and B2B procurement, AI can automate routine work, provide actionable insights and maintain oversight while leaving humans in charge of high-impact decisions.
PwC’s survey finds that nearly three-quarters of executives expect AI agents to deliver a competitive advantage within the next year, highlighting why enterprise leaders are increasingly investing in these technologies.
And as enterprises continue to embrace agentic AI across customer service, marketing and procurement, the technology is likely to handle more complex operations.
Over the next 12 months, “AI agents will expand from agentic customer service into catalog governance, real-time pricing adjustments, and supply chain orchestration,” Gomide de Faria said.