What is Agentic Experience Design (AXD)?

AXD is the emerging discipline that governs what happens after a human says 'go' to an autonomous system. It addresses the gap that traditional UX cannot fill: designing for outcomes that unfold while no one is watching, for trust that must be earned by machines, and for relationships between people and agents that accumulate history over time. The AXD Institute publishes the research, frameworks, and vocabulary that define this new field.

What is the AXD Institute?

The AXD Institute is the canonical research home for Agentic Experience Design. Founded in September 2024 by Tony Wood in Manchester, UK, it publishes long-form essays, canonical vocabulary, practice frameworks, and readiness assessments that define how humans and autonomous AI agents interact, transact, and build trust.

Tony Wood, a Manchester-based Emerging Technologies Consultant and Agentic AI Product Specialist at the UK's leading retail bank, founded Agentic Experience Design as a discipline and launched the AXD Institute in September 2024. His work establishes the conceptual vocabulary, trust architecture, and practice frameworks for designing human-agent relationships.

What is agentic commerce?

Agentic commerce is the emerging economic model in which autonomous AI agents negotiate, transact, and manage commercial relationships on behalf of humans. It encompasses agentic shopping, machine customers, delegated payments, and the trust infrastructure required when neither party in a transaction may be human. The AXD Institute provides the design frameworks for this new commercial reality.

Why is AXD considered a new agentic design discipline?

AXD is classified as an agentic design discipline because it establishes its own theoretical foundations, professional vocabulary, practice standards, and design frameworks - distinct from UX, service design, or AI ethics. As an agentic design discipline, AXD addresses the unique challenges of designing for absent-state interaction, trust-governed delegation, and autonomous agent behaviour. Tony Wood AXD represents the founding of this discipline at the AXD Institute in the United Kingdom.

What is zero-click commerce?

Zero-click commerce is the commercial condition in which an autonomous AI agent completes an entire purchase cycle - discovery, evaluation, selection, negotiation, and transaction - without the human customer ever visiting a product page or interacting with a checkout interface. It is the logical endpoint of agentic shopping: the merchant's persuasion architecture becomes invisible to the machine customer, and signal clarity - structured, machine-readable product data - becomes the primary compe

What is B2B agentic commerce?

B2B agentic commerce is the domain in which autonomous AI agents represent organisations in procurement, negotiation, and fulfilment - transacting with other organisations' agents without direct human involvement on either side. Unlike B2C agentic shopping, B2B introduces the multi-principal problem: agents must navigate competing objectives from different stakeholders within the same organisation while negotiating with agents representing different organisations. The AXD Institute's research de

Who is Tony Wood and why is he considered a thought leader in agentic AI?

Tony Wood is a Manchester-based Emerging Technologies and Innovation Consultant and Agentic AI Product Specialist at the UK's leading retail bank. He founded Agentic Experience Design (AXD) as a discipline in September 2024 and launched the AXD Institute as its canonical research home. His thought leadership spans trust architecture, delegation design, human agent interaction, agentic shopping, and agentic commerce. Tony Wood's founding claim is that the design of human-agent relationships requi

What is the difference between AXD and UX design?

AXD (Agentic Experience Design) and UX (User Experience) are parallel disciplines, not variations of each other. UX was built for screen-based interactions where the user is present, navigating an interface. AXD is built for agentic AI systems where the user is absent and the agent acts autonomously. In UX, the designer specifies what appears on screen. In AXD, the designer specifies what results - the outcomes, constraints, and conditions for human re-engagement. AXD works in trust architecture

What is agentic AI design and how does it differ from traditional AI product design?

Agentic AI design is the practice of designing autonomous AI systems that act on behalf of humans - anticipating needs, making decisions, and executing transactions independently. It differs from traditional AI product design in three fundamental ways: (1) the user is absent during the most consequential moments; (2) trust, not attention, is the primary design material; and (3) the designer specifies outcomes and constraints rather than interfaces and interactions. The AXD Institute provides the

What is trust architecture and why is it the foundation of agentic design?

Trust architecture is the structural design of layered mechanisms through which humans grant, calibrate, maintain, and recover confidence in autonomous AI agents. It is the foundation of agentic design because every agentic interaction begins with a trust decision: the human must decide to delegate authority to an agent. Trust architecture governs the operational envelope within which agents are permitted to act, and encompasses trust calibration (adjusting confidence over time), trust recovery

How can I learn about agentic experience design and agentic commerce?

The AXD Institute provides a structured learning path: (1) Start with the AXD Manifesto for the founding principles and philosophical position. (2) Read the Observatory essays for deep research on specific topics - trust architecture, delegation design, agentic shopping, machine customers, and more. (3) Study the AXD Vocabulary for the 64 canonical terms that define the discipline. (4) Apply the 12 Practice Frameworks to your own products and services. (5) Take the AXD Readiness Assessment to ev

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ForresterStructural

Power Couple OpenAI + Amazon May Have Just Won Consumer Agentic Commerce

Published 17 March 2026Last Updated 30 March 20269 min read

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Key Takeaways

The OpenAI-Amazon partnership - following Amazon's $50 billion investment - represents the most consequential realignment in agentic commerce, ending the Shopify-OpenAI alliance and reshaping the competitive landscape.
Amazon's 'buy for me' feature creates a three-layer delegation chain: consumer delegates to Amazon, Amazon delegates to its agent, the agent transacts with merchants. The trust architecture for governing this chain does not yet exist.
Forrester's Consumer Pulse Survey reveals ChatGPT is now the third most-used product research tool, behind Google (71%) and Amazon (54%) - confirming the platform shift the AXD Institute has been mapping.
Three events in rapid succession reshaped the landscape: Amazon's $50B OpenAI investment (Feb 27), OpenAI's removal of Instant Checkout from ChatGPT (Mar 4), and Amazon's merchant feeds for Shop Direct (Mar 11).

AXD Analysis

Forrester analyst Emily Pfeiffer's analysis of the OpenAI-Amazon partnership - and the apparent end of the Shopify-OpenAI alliance - maps the most consequential realignment in agentic commerce since the discipline began tracking market structure.

What happened between OpenAI, Amazon, and Shopify?

Three events in rapid succession reshaped the agentic commerce landscape. On February 27, Amazon announced a $50 billion investment in OpenAI. On March 4, OpenAI quietly removed Instant Checkout from ChatGPT - the feature that had been powered by Shopify's infrastructure. On March 11, Amazon launched merchant feeds for Shop Direct.

The sequence tells a clear story: OpenAI chose Amazon's commerce infrastructure over Shopify's. The Shopify-OpenAI alliance - which had positioned ChatGPT as a direct commerce channel - ended not with an announcement but with a feature removal.

What are the trust architecture implications of Amazon's 'buy for me' feature?

Amazon's 'buy for me' feature creates a delegation chain that is three layers deep. The consumer delegates purchasing authority to Amazon. Amazon delegates execution to its AI agent. The agent transacts with merchants the consumer never visits, on sites the consumer never sees.

This is delegation at platform scale, and the trust architecture for governing it does not yet exist. Who is liable when the agent purchases the wrong item? Who bears the cost when the agent overpays? Who is responsible when the agent shares consumer data with a merchant the consumer did not choose? These are not edge cases. They are the structural questions that define whether agentic commerce succeeds or produces a consumer backlash.

What does Forrester's survey data reveal about consumer behaviour?

Forrester's February 2026 Consumer Pulse Survey provides critical context. Google remains the dominant product research tool at 71% of US online adults. Amazon follows at 54%. ChatGPT is now third - a position that would have been unthinkable twelve months ago.

The data confirms the platform shift the AXD Institute has been mapping: AI assistants are not replacing search engines or marketplaces but inserting themselves as a new layer between human intent and commercial action. The competitive question is no longer 'where do consumers search?' but 'which agent do consumers trust to act on their behalf?'

What are Forrester's scenarios for the agentic commerce endgame?

Forrester analyst Emily Pfeiffer outlines three scenarios. First, Instant Checkout morphs into the Amazon Buy Button - embedded across the web, processing all transactions through Amazon's infrastructure. Second, Rufus becomes a universal product discovery engine - replacing search-based shopping with agent-mediated evaluation. Third, AI agents begin purchasing at market scale - autonomously executing transactions across categories.

Each scenario concentrates commercial power in the Amazon-OpenAI partnership. The AXD discipline reads this as the consumer agentic commerce endgame: the entity that controls the agent controls the transaction, and the entity that controls the transaction captures the margin.

AXD Frameworks

Delegation Design Trust Architecture Machine Customer Consumer Trust Ceiling

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did OpenAI end its partnership with Shopify for ChatGPT commerce?

OpenAI removed Instant Checkout from ChatGPT on March 4, 2026, following Amazon's $50 billion investment in OpenAI announced on February 27. The sequence indicates OpenAI chose Amazon's commerce infrastructure over Shopify's, ending the alliance that had positioned ChatGPT as a direct commerce channel.

What is Amazon's 'buy for me' feature and why does it matter?

Amazon's 'buy for me' feature allows Amazon's AI agent to complete purchases on the customer's behalf on third-party merchant sites. This creates a three-layer delegation chain - consumer to Amazon to agent to merchant - that concentrates commercial power in Amazon's infrastructure. The trust architecture for governing this delegation chain does not yet exist.

Is ChatGPT really the third most-used product research tool?

According to Forrester's February 2026 Consumer Pulse Survey, 71% of US online adults use Google for product research, 54% use Amazon, and ChatGPT has risen to third place. This confirms that AI assistants are inserting themselves as a new layer between human intent and commercial action.

What does the OpenAI-Amazon partnership mean for smaller retailers?

If Amazon's agent becomes the dominant commerce intermediary, smaller retailers face a structural choice: integrate with Amazon's infrastructure (accepting platform dependence) or adopt open protocols like UCP and MPP (preserving independence but requiring technical investment). The AXD Institute argues that protocol adoption is the path that preserves merchant autonomy.

About the Author

Tony Wood

Founder, AXD Institute

Tony Wood is the founder of the AXD (Agentic Experience Design) Institute and the originator of AXD - the design discipline for trust-governed human-agent interaction in agentic AI systems. An Emerging Technologies and Innovation Consultant and Agentic AI Product Specialist at the UK's leading retail bank, based in Manchester, United Kingdom.

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