Roxane Laigle (Lemrock) "With Agentic Commerce, We May Be Heading Toward a Zero-Click Era"

Ahead of the Mastercard Innovation Forum on November 5, Roxane Laigle, CEO and cofounder of Lemrock, discusses the challenges of agentic commerce and its impact on e-commerce businesses.

JDN. As CEO of Lemrock, you'll be speaking on "What Will Shopping Look Like Tomorrow With Agentic Commerce?" at the Mastercard Innovation Forum. Can you introduce Lemrock?

Roxane Laigle. Lemrock is an agentic commerce infrastructure. Our solution, which we call middleware, sits between brands and AI agents. It allows merchants to appear directly in conversational AIs and sell their products the moment a user expresses an intent to buy. We're compatible with all major language models, including ChatGPT, Mistral, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and DeepSeek. In practice, when a consumer asks a question to an AI, we open a commercial space within that conversation.

What are the main obstacles that could slow the development and adoption of agentic commerce?

Agentic commerce is still in a testing phase, and several hurdles need to be overcome. The first is consumer trust. There's also a need to clarify responsibility in case the AI makes a mistake, such as buying the wrong product. Finally, the regulatory framework still needs to be stabilized: payment protocols aren't yet harmonized, and requirements differ, especially between Europe and the United States. Once these standards are set, merchants will need support to adapt. Their payment infrastructures will have to evolve to integrate these new uses. This transformation will take time and require real support efforts.

Will e-commerce businesses, regardless of size, necessarily need to rely on a technology partner to make the shift to agentic commerce?

Small businesses with limited teams will look to partner with specialists. For large groups, the transformation is a massive undertaking. They already have to change internally, so it's better for them to outsource the technical side to stay at the forefront of this shift—especially since the technical framework for agentic commerce changes every three to six months. Working with a service provider lets them continuously adapt to new technical and regulatory requirements.

In ten years, will consumers still visit e-commerce websites?

We may be heading toward a "zero-click" era, where consumers no longer need to visit e-commerce sites to make purchases. Merchants need to prepare for this scenario. That said, I believe merchant websites will still play an important role in the medium term, because habits change slowly. Shopping and payment behaviors are deeply rooted and built on trust. But if we move to a model where purchases happen entirely through conversational AI, merchants will have to connect with these agents. The main point of contact with consumers will gradually shift to the conversational interface.

How could agentic commerce change the balance of power between small retailers and large chains?

Agentic commerce opens up new opportunities for smaller players. What will matter most is how relevant an offer is and how precisely it meets a need. Small retailers will be able to reach consumers, whereas until now they were at a disadvantage compared to big brands with large marketing budgets. Agentic commerce could therefore level the playing field in their favor.

This article was automatically translated from French. Read the original version: https://www.journaldunet.com/retail/1556869-nous-nous-dirigeons-peut-etre-vers-une-ere-du-zero-clic/