Overview - Overviews

Overview

Forter Agentic Orchestration Forter Agentic Orchestration

The orchestration layer that connects your commerce stack to the AI shopping revolution.

What is Agentic Commerce? What is Agentic Commerce?

A new paradigm where AI agents discover, evaluate, and purchase products on behalf of consumers.

For two decades, e-commerce followed a consistent pattern: consumers visit websites, search for products, add items to carts, and complete checkout forms. This model required buyers to navigate multiple sites, compare options manually, and handle payment details themselves.

Agentic commerce fundamentally changes this.

Instead of browsing websites, consumers describe what they want in natural language. An AI agent—like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, or Perplexity—interprets the request, searches across merchants, compares options, and can complete the purchase within the same conversation.

Traditional vs. Agentic Shopping Traditional vs. Agentic Shopping

Aspect Traditional E-commerce Agentic Commerce
Discovery Consumer searches multiple websites AI agent queries product catalogs
Evaluation Manual comparison across tabs Agent synthesizes options and recommends
Selection Consumer clicks "Add to Cart" Agent confirms selection with user
Checkout Fill forms, enter payment info Agent handles checkout via secure APIs
Interface Web browsers, mobile apps Conversational (chat, voice)

Example Interaction Example Interaction

Traditional:

  1. Open browser, go to Amazon
  2. Search "wireless noise-canceling headphones"
  3. Scroll through results, open 5 tabs
  4. Read reviews, compare specs
  5. Add to cart, enter shipping address
  6. Enter credit card, complete purchase

Agentic:

"Find me wireless noise-canceling headphones under $300 with good bass for commuting"

The AI agent searches multiple merchants, filters by criteria, presents top 3 options with pros/cons, and completes the purchase upon confirmation—all in one conversation.

The Challenge The Challenge

AI shopping agents like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Perplexity are becoming the new storefront. But these platforms require:

Building this infrastructure in-house requires significant engineering investment across multiple evolving platforms—each with different specifications and requirements.

The Solution The Solution

Forter Agentic Orchestration acts as a unified orchestration layer between AI platforms and your existing commerce backend.

Choose Your Integration Path Choose Your Integration Path

Forter supports three integration methods based on your e-commerce platform:

  1. Shopify Integration 

    • Forter pulls your catalog via Shopify Admin API
    • Orders are created directly in Shopify via Draft Orders API
    • You provide: Admin API Access Token
  2. SFCC Integration 

    • Forter pulls your catalog via OCAPI Shop API
    • Orders are created directly in SFCC via OCAPI Basket/Order APIs
    • You provide: OCAPI Client ID and Secret
  3. Custom Integration 

    • You host a product feed at a stable URL
    • Forter calls your webhook endpoint with completed orders
    • You provide: Feed URL + Webhook endpoint

Key Capabilities Key Capabilities

1. Unified Catalog Ingestion 1. Unified Catalog Ingestion

Connect your existing e-commerce platform without restructuring your backend:

2. Semantic Transformation 2. Semantic Transformation

Transform product data for AI comprehension:

3. Real-Time Inventory Sync 3. Real-Time Inventory Sync

Prevent over-selling and inventory hallucinations:

POST /v1/inventory
Authorization: Bearer {api_key}
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "id":"SKU-001",
  "quantity":15,
  "availability":"in_stock"
}

4. Secure Checkout Orchestration 4. Secure Checkout Orchestration

End-to-end transaction handling with PCI compliance:

Why Forter Agentic Orchestration? Why Forter Agentic Orchestration?

The Agentic Commerce Challenge The Agentic Commerce Challenge

Enabling AI agents to transact on behalf of consumers requires solving multiple interconnected problems:

Challenge What's Involved
Multi-Platform Complexity Each AI platform (OpenAI, Google, Perplexity) has different API specs, authentication flows, and data requirements—and these are evolving rapidly
Payment Security PCI-compliant tokenization and payment processing within conversational interfaces
Catalog Optimization Product data structured for LLM comprehension, not just traditional search
Inventory Accuracy Real-time stock levels to prevent AI hallucinations and failed purchases
Tax Compliance US sales tax calculation across jurisdictions and product categories
Fraud Prevention New transaction patterns require new risk models—agentic purchases look different from traditional e-commerce

Why Forter Why Forter

Forter brings unique advantages to agentic commerce:

Fraud Expertise in New Paradigms

Agentic transactions have different risk signals than traditional e-commerce. Forter's Identity Intelligence network—processing billions of transactions across thousands of merchants—provides the data foundation to distinguish legitimate AI-assisted purchases from fraud. This isn't a new fraud model built from scratch; it's an extension of proven infrastructure.

Merchant Network Effects

Catalog intelligence improves as more merchants connect. Product taxonomy normalization, attribute enrichment, and availability patterns benefit from aggregate data across the Forter network.

Protocol Evolution

Standards like ACP are still emerging. Forter's dedicated focus on commerce infrastructure means active participation in protocol development and rapid adaptation as specs change—without requiring integration updates from merchants.

What This Means for You What This Means for You

The Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) The Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP)

To enable AI agents to transact with merchants, standardized protocols are emerging. The most significant is the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), co-developed by OpenAI and Stripe.

What ACP Defines What ACP Defines

Why Protocols Matter Why Protocols Matter

Without standardization, each AI platform would require different integrations:

Protocols like ACP create a common language that orchestrators (like Forter Agentic Orchestration) can implement once and expose to all platforms.

How It Works How It Works

When a customer purchases through an AI agent:

  1. Customer initiates purchase — The customer tells ChatGPT, Gemini, or another AI assistant they want to buy a product
  2. Forter validates the order — We verify product availability against your catalog and calculate shipping options
  3. Tax is calculated — Based on your nexus configuration, Forter computes accurate sales tax
  4. Payment is processed — The AI platform securely collects payment; Forter processes it through your configured PSP
  5. Order is delivered to you — The completed order is sent to your backend via your configured integration

Why Merchants Should Care Why Merchants Should Care

New Customer Acquisition Channel New Customer Acquisition Channel

AI assistants are becoming the primary interface for millions of consumers. Being discoverable by AI agents means access to customers who may never visit your website directly.

Reduced Purchase Friction Reduced Purchase Friction

Conversational commerce eliminates the traditional checkout friction:

Competitive Differentiation Competitive Differentiation

Early adopters of agentic commerce gain visibility in AI recommendations before the market becomes saturated. AI agents prioritize merchants with:

Higher Conversion Potential Higher Conversion Potential

When an AI agent recommends your product, the consumer is already in a high-intent state. The seamless checkout flow reduces abandonment compared to traditional cart-based purchases.

The Future of Shopping The Future of Shopping

Agentic commerce represents a fundamental shift in how consumers interact with merchants. As AI assistants become more capable and consumer trust grows:

Merchants who prepare their infrastructure today will be positioned to capture this emerging channel.

Getting Started Getting Started

Choose your integration path based on your e-commerce platform:

Or start with the Quickstart Guide  to choose the right path.

Next Steps Next Steps