The agentic commerce shift
AI agents are taking over B2B purchasing. Here's what that means for manufacturers, importers, and the distributors between them.
Commerce where AI agents are the buyers
Agentic commerce is what happens when AI systems act autonomously on behalf of business buyers: discovering suppliers, evaluating products, comparing pricing, negotiating terms, and initiating purchases without human intervention at every step.
This isn't a future prediction. It's happening now. Google's Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) already enables direct purchases from suppliers within AI search. Enterprise procurement platforms like Coupa, SAP Ariba, and Ivalua are deploying AI agents that autonomously handle supplier discovery and evaluation. Startups like Tropic, Zip, and Find My Factory are building agents that source, vet, and negotiate with suppliers at scale.
The common thread: these agents don't browse catalogues or call sales teams. They query structured data, APIs, and machine-readable feeds. They evaluate suppliers based on data completeness, operational reliability, and programmatic accessibility. And they're getting better, faster, and more autonomous every quarter.
The six things distributors do, and the five that AI agents are replacing
Wholesalers and distributors have historically justified their position by providing six functions that manufacturers lacked the capacity or capability to handle themselves:
AI procurement agents are systematically replacing the first four. They discover suppliers directly through structured data and protocol registrations. They process product information from machine-readable feeds. They handle order placement programmatically. And they compare pricing transparently across suppliers.
That leaves logistics and credit: important functions, but not ones worth 25-40% of margin.
The result: distributors who don't add value beyond aggregation and reach are facing margin compression, disintermediation, and declining relevance. Manufacturers who can make themselves directly accessible to AI agents gain a higher-margin channel to market.
The agent-readiness gap
Most manufacturers (and particularly SMBs with 10-100 employees) are structurally unprepared for agentic commerce. Research shows that 40% of B2B firms still manage product data manually, and the majority of manufacturer websites are brochures rather than machine-readable storefronts.
To participate in agentic commerce, a manufacturer needs five things:
Each of these components exists as a separate tool or service. But stitching them together into a coherent, affordable, managed solution for a manufacturer with a 15-person team? That's the gap Thunderous exists to fill.
The protocols reshaping B2B commerce
Three major protocols are emerging as the infrastructure layer for agentic commerce. Each defines how AI agents discover, evaluate, and transact with sellers:
Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)
Developed by Google in partnership with Shopify. Covers the full commerce lifecycle: discovery, comparison, checkout, and tracking. The most universal protocol with broad agent compatibility. This should be the first priority for any business preparing for agentic commerce.
Model Context Protocol (MCP)
Developed by Anthropic. Enables AI models (particularly Claude-based agents) to interact with external tools and data sources, including product catalogues, pricing systems, and order management. Growing ecosystem with strong developer adoption.
Agent Commerce Protocol (ACP)
Developed by OpenAI in partnership with Stripe. Focused on secure agent-to-merchant transactions, particularly single-item purchases and checkout flows. Narrower in scope but backed by significant payment infrastructure.
For manufacturers, the practical implication is straightforward: your products need to be registered and accessible through at least UCP to be discoverable by the widest range of AI procurement agents. MCP and ACP support extends your reach further.
Getting started with agentic commerce readiness
You don't need to rebuild your business overnight. But the manufacturers who start preparing now will be significantly better positioned as AI-driven procurement accelerates. Here are the first moves:
Audit your product data. Can your catalogue be read by a machine, or is it trapped in PDFs and sales presentations? The single highest-impact step is structuring your product data into a standardised, machine-readable format.
Check your digital presence. Does your website use Schema.org markup? Do your product pages have structured data (JSON-LD)? Can an AI agent visiting your site extract your product specifications, pricing ranges, and contact terms?
Understand your distributor dependency. What percentage of your revenue goes through distributors? What margin do you surrender? Could you fulfil orders that arrived directly from AI procurement agents?
Follow the protocol landscape. UCP, MCP, and ACP are evolving rapidly. Understanding these protocols now (even before you implement them) puts you ahead of 95% of manufacturers.
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Explore the Knowledge Hub for detailed explanations of agentic commerce concepts, or get in touch to discuss what this shift means for your specific business.