Jacob Lovén is a Swedish tech writer, co-founder of the advisory firm The Perspective, and host of the Retail All-Stars Podcast. In this conversation, we revisit NRF Week in New York and the ongoing industry debate around agentic AI.
During NRF, Lovén hosted a series of live podcast sessions at the official residence of the Swedish Consul General on Park Avenue, featuring leaders from Paul Smith, Lager 157, and Shein.
In this episode, he explains why dominant platforms see shopping agents as a threat rather than innovation, why retailers are hesitating despite sensing a major shift, and why the most immediate impact of agentic AI is likely to happen inside organisations, not in consumer checkout flows.
Key takeaways
Agentic commerce is an incentives problem
Lovén argues that the internet’s current business model is built on advertising and “building moats”, which makes genuinely independent agents unlikely in the mainstream ecosystem. “We talk a little bit too little about the incentives going into this.”
Platforms will resist what bypasses ads
He points to how platform economics shape what is allowed to exist. If agents bypass ads and on-platform conversion flows, they challenge the profit engine. “The platforms who are dominating the ecosystem, they do not call this innovation. They call it trespassing.”
Retail sees the shift, but is not acting like it
Despite the NRF narrative, Lovén highlights a practical signal: retail is not hiring. His interpretation is that companies sense change, but hesitate due to macro uncertainty and repeated hype cycles. “We’re all sensing that something’s going to come around the corner, but we’re not acting like it’s going to come around the corner.”
Physical retail remains binary
Alongside the AI agenda, he returns to the basics of store experience. Done well, it is a differentiator. Done badly, it is a visible cost centre. “If you do it wrong, you’re basically just losing money in public for everyone to see.”
Saturation is the structural reality
Borrowing the framing from Jack Stratton, Lovén describes saturation as the real competitive challenge: too many brands, too many products, too much media noise. The answer is not louder marketing, but sharper accuracy. “There’s no way you can scream louder, you just have to be much more accurate.”
Internal agents will arrive before consumer agents
He sees near-term value in “agentic workflows” inside companies: AI “employees” supporting admin, buying, analytics, and planning. The goal should be efficiency and accuracy, not headline-grabbing cost cutting. “I don’t see any kind of hinder for a company today to make sure that every team has an AI agent supporting it.”
