Gladly Launches Agentic Commerce to End Retail's Two-Bot Era

One AI now sells and serves every Gladly customer in a single conversation

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 5, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Gladly today launched agentic commerce, joining its existing agentic service to give brands one conversational AI that sells to and serves customers in one conversation, replacing the separate shopping assistants and support bots most retail sites run.

"Every brand I talk to is running two or more AI agents on its site," said Charlie Besecker, CEO of Gladly. "One AI tool sells, the other services, and neither knows what the other is doing. Shoppers are the only people touching both ends of the transaction, and they end up frustrated, stuck in loops and passed from one unhelpful chatbot to the next. We built agentic commerce to make that problem obsolete for every retail brand."

AI traffic to U.S. retail sites rose 393% year over year in the first quarter of 2026, according to Adobe Analytics data covering more than 1 trillion visits. In March 2026, that traffic converted 42% better than non-AI traffic and generated 37% more revenue per visit. A separate Adobe survey of more than 5,000 respondents found that 39% of U.S. consumers now shop with AI, and 85% say it improved their experience.

A shopper may arrive at a brand's site already leaning toward a decision an AI helped shape. They have one question left, but if the site can't answer it, they leave. A shopping assistant can recommend a product but can't access their order history, so it can't confirm whether a return qualifies for a free exchange. A support bot can see the order but was not built to sell, so it closes the case and lets the next sale walk away.

Gladly built its platform around the customer instead of the session, so the AI that answers a sizing question and the AI that handles the exchange are the same AI on the same customer record. Agentic commerce is the first product that needed that entire architecture at once.

At Balsam Hill, one in five shoppers who viewed a product in chat added it to their cart during the tool's first 30 days, while resolution rates ranged from 80% to 91%, according to a Gladly case study published Sept. 14. The tool is live in the U.S., U.K. and Australia. In its first month, the tool drove Balsam Hill over six figures in add-to-cart value.

"The one elusive hole we had to fill was product questions," said Joe Balczo, senior strategist for AI and CX technology at Balsam Brands. "Customers would ask the shopping bot something only service could answer, or ask service something only shopping could answer, and either way they were the ones figuring out which box to talk to. Now it's one conversation, and in the first month, one in five shoppers who looked at a product in chat put it in their cart."

Gladly is sold as subscription software priced based on outcomes rather than seats, and the company guarantees it will outperform the brand's current AI in conversion rate, resolution rate and customer satisfaction within 30 days, or the brand pays nothing. There are no implementation fees, and a typical launch takes about a week.

The line between selling and serving was never real to the shopper. It only ever existed in the org chart, and Gladly built the first platform without it.

About Gladly

Gladly is the Commerce AI platform built to run the entire retail customer relationship. The same AI that helps a shopper decide what to buy supports them long after the sale, so they get one continuous experience with the brand instead of a handoff between disconnected tools. Trained on more than 450 million retail interactions, Gladly resolves and sells in the same conversation, getting sharper the longer it's live. Founded in 2014 and based in San Francisco, Gladly serves brands such as Crate & Barrel, Ulta Beauty, Nordstrom and HOKA. The company has raised more than $200 million from investors including AXA Venture Partners, Riverwood Capital, Greylock and NEA.

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SOURCE Gladly