Frontier AI lab Anthropic said it has released a blueprint both shoppers and merchants can use to build agents that help them transact business. The blueprint includes harnesses, development patterns and guardrails for commerce agents in retail, travel, telecommunications and ticketing.
The shopping-agent implementation connects with catalogs, carts, checkout systems, customer preferences and order histories. According to the company, it can handle multi-item searches, personalize recommendations, compare products, build carts and answer customer-service questions within the same conversation. Payment remains with the merchant’s existing checkout system or an agentic payments provider.
Merchants can also build agents using the blueprint that analyze sales performance, monitor inventory, recommend pricing and promotions, and draft marketing campaigns based on a retailer’s data. Anthropic says a human must approve proactively suggested changes before they go live.
The repository supports development using Anthropic’s Messages API, Agent SDK or Claude Managed Agents, currently in beta. Anthropic is also working with partners including Accenture, Mastercard and Visa to support deployment of the blueprints.
“AI will fundamentally reshape commerce, but trust must remain at the center of every transaction,” said Jack Forestall, chief product and strategy officer at Visa. “Merchants are telling us they want more control over how AI engages their customers. Our collaboration with Anthropic on their commerce blueprint helps bring together the intelligence of Claude with the trust, security and global reach of the Visa network.”
