Microsoft announced new commerce capabilities for its AI products with features designed to support shopping journeys from discovery to purchase within the same interaction. Here’s what’s new:
Copilot Checkout – a new agentic feature that enables users to complete purchases directly within the Copilot experience, similar to OpenAI’s Instant Checkout. For shoppers, the feature supports product comparison and follow-up questions within a single conversation and in-chat checkout. For merchants, the experience allows them to remain the merchant of record and ownership of the transaction and customer data. Microsoft is initially enabling Copilot Checkout in the U.S. through integrations with Shopify, PayPal, and Stripe.
Branded Agents – AI-powered shopping assistants designed for deployment on merchant websites. Brand Agents are designed to respond to customers in the merchant’s voice, guide customers through product discovery and comparison, address questions related to shipping, returns, and product fit, and surface checkout links at appropriate points in the shopping journey. It also offers post-purchase support and recommendations like add-ons or replenishments.
Beyond shopping and checkout, Microsoft also announced new agentic AI capabilities for retail teams, targeting automation across supply chain, merchandising, store execution, and customer service through its existing Copilot and Dynamics platforms. The company said these agents are designed to monitor real-time signals, surface recommendations, and coordinate actions across systems to reduce manual work and improve operational efficiency.
Poor Microsoft! This news got overshadowed hard by Google and Shopify’s launch of Universal Commerce Protocol. On a different week, this would’ve been the headline story. Now it sort of feels like, “Great, another AI assistant and buy button.”
Also is anyone actually using Copilot? Personally, my only relationship with Copilot is trying to get it to leave me alone in Windows. I’ve never intentionally opened or used the service other than to test its fashion discovery tool that launched in partnership with Curated For You back in September, but maybe I’m missing out?
