AI agents are changing the nature of customer relationships by taking on more of the discovery, comparison, negotiation, and purchasing decisions that companies once controlled through their own platforms. As consumers delegate more decisions to agents, traditional sources of marketplace power'including engagement, network effects, supplier lock-in, proprietary data, and even a company's own AI agent'may no longer guarantee control over the customer relationship. The emerging advantage belongs to companies that can help agents make better decisions by connecting customer intent to transactions, observing outcomes, and using those insights to improve future decisions. Six shifts illustrate how the rules are changing, from the declining importance of owning discovery and network effects to the growing value of transaction-level feedback and the ability to earn the right to represent the customer.
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