Owning the checkout: How Rokt built its platform for the AI moment

AI is reshaping the retail purchase journey at an extraordinary speed. Rokt’s Michael Dunlop explains why brands must strengthen their customer relationships and protect the checkout – the moments AI cannot own.

Every day, millions of people turn to generative AI chatbots for answers. ChatGPT alone had more than 900 million weekly active users as of February 2026. ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot and Gemini are fast becoming familiar brand names. They are also becoming shopping companions.

“LLMs are exceptional at discovery. A handful of prompts now does what used to take a dozen tabs and a weekend. The top of the funnel is collapsing fast,” says Michael Dunlop, SVP and General Manager of Commercial, APAC, at Rokt.

In his decade at Rokt, working in New York, Seattle, Melbourne and Sydney, Dunlop has seen first-hand how online ecommerce has evolved. The company supports marquee brands, including THE ICONIC, Macy’s, Uber, and Afterpay, as they navigate the changing dynamics in online commerce.

Shopify has reported that more than half of AI-referred sessions start on product pages, compared to 20% for organic search. “AI-referred sessions convert at nearly 50% higher rates,” Dunlop says, reflecting on the growing importance of AI ecommerce strategies.

According to Capgemini research, 60% of consumers prefer product recommendations from generative AI tools to those from search engines.

Not since Google introduced web search, Apple launched the smartphone, or Amazon redefined ecommerce has a new technology shifted online shopping so quickly. Where once the internet search was the default starting point, AI is now transforming shopping habits.

The AI-powered purchase journey

Consumers have quickly come to expect AI to do the heavy lifting. Three-quarters of consumers are open to generative AI shopping recommendations, the Capgemini survey found. Almost 70% want search results, social media mentions, and retailer website information collated in AI recommendations.

Looking to capitalise on the momentum, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, announced in late 2025 it would launch a checkout feature, with major brands and payment partners on board. But technical barriers and shoppers’ preference to use ChatGPT for discovery forced a rethink.

“ChatGPT pulled back on in-chat checkout because shoppers kept clicking through to the retailer anyway. That’s a trust signal,” Dunlop says.

“Consumers still want the brand to own the transaction. And the infrastructure problem is harder than people thought. Live inventory, tax, fraud, returns at scale across millions of SKUs. That isn’t a six-month fix. The checkout moment is going to sit with retailers for longer than most people predicted six months ago.”

Yet AI agents may soon start making purchase decisions. Earlier this year, Google announced a new feature, the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), that lets AI agents interact with retail websites. Microsoft has launched Copilot Checkout, an in-chat checkout feature.

“Until now, brands have been optimising for human eyeballs – imagery, hero banners, scroll animations and video. But what appeals to humans is not the same as what works with AI,” Dunlop says.

Agents require structured data, product feeds, clear specs, reviews, and consistent availability and pricing to understand retail websites and incorporate that information into their responses and recommendations.

Retail brands will need to overhaul their e-commerce infrastructure to enable agent discovery and transactions. Yet this is not a minor issue. Adobe data shows that in the US, a major portion of retail websites are not entirely readable by machines, which limits their visibility in AI search results.

Clean product data, API-accessible inventory, consistent pricing across channels and rich structured descriptions will be key. As this plays out, Dunlop foresees the risk to brands. “If LLMs are doing the majority of discovery, retailers could have little interaction beyond the final transaction and shipping.”

Bain and Company recommends retailers retain ownership of data, fulfilment and, ideally, the checkout. Otherwise, the risk is becoming fulfilment pipes for LLM platforms.

“Retailers are sitting on the most valuable behavioural data in commerce. If LLMs become the discovery layer, that data moves upstream. Most retailers haven’t priced that risk in yet,” Dunlop says.

The checkout as the last owned moment

As AI reshapes the retail experience, it looks set to create a split between human- and agent-led journeys. The first question every retailer needs to ask is deceptively simple. “Are they in the ‘buying’ camp or are they in the ‘shopping’ camp?” says Dunlop. The answer will help define their strategies.

“Consumers still want the brand to own the transaction. And the infrastructure problem is harder than people thought.” – Michael Dunlop 

Buying is aligned with more low-joy, utilitarian purchases, whereas shopping is aligned with high-joy purchases.

“Buying is utilitarian. Replenishment, commodities, the same jeans you bought last year. Agents will own that. Shopping is experiential – curation, discovery, brand. That’s where retailers can still win. The worst place to be is in the middle. Retailers trying to play both sides will do neither well.”

High-joy, experiential shopping is where brands can still win on curation, service, and the checkout. If AI handles discovery, the confirmation page may be the only touchpoint retailers fully own.

“When the only moment you fully own is checkout, every pixel on that page is doing more work than it ever has. Most retailers still treat it like a receipt.”

Rokt has spent a decade building for the transaction moment. It has invested $400 million in M&A activity, a deliberate, forward-looking investment play. It has strengthened the data, identity, content and transaction capabilities retailers will need in an AI-led retail journey.

Rokt is supporting brands building defensibility in the AI shopping journey. The Iconic Front Row and Wesfarmers OnePass show brands investing in the moments AI cannot own.

“If you want to own the customer relationship, you have to own the transaction. That’s the moment that isn’t moving upstream,” Dunlop says.

“They don’t treat the purchase page as a thank-you page. It is a marketing channel with the highest intent in the business. The checkout isn’t the end of the journey. It’s the start of the next one.”

Learn more at rokt.com

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