I used to work in the software industry. For a period of time, I held this view: Over the long run, the American B2B software industry might wither away.

My old reasoning was as follows: The fundamental value of B2B software comes from the fact that software engineers are expensive in the U.S. That means client companies cannot easily afford to build software in-house (attracting and maintaining software talent is costly) and therefore, they buy from vendors instead. In China, however, an abundant supply of high-skill and low-cost labor means something quite the opposite—with inexpensive software coders, Chinese companies tend to build software in house. Therefore, as we can observe, China’s B2B software industry is nowhere near as successful as the country’s consumer internet industry or the U.S. software industry. So, I thought my reasoning had legs.

“Agentic Commerce” is in fashion. The media talks about it. Investors are mesmerized by it.

Like many new concepts, “Agentic Commerce” has a definition that is a bit fluid. It can be roughly defined as a way of online shopping where AI agents autonomously shop on behalf of a human consumer. The AI agents can interpret human intent, discover product options, optimize for constraints (prices, features, delivery speed) and complete transactions.