Australian retailers are unprepared for the imminent arrival of AI-powered shopping agents, with some major retail sites inadvertently blocking the customers they’re trying to serve, a new research study reveals.
The ‘State of Browser Agents in Australian Retail’ report by AI specialist agency Time Under Tension tested 11 Australian retailers including JB Hi-Fi, Bunnings, Chemist Warehouse and Officeworks. Results highlighted that while browser agents successfully completed shopping tasks (79 per cent of the time), the variation between retailers was stark – and the stakes are about to get much higher.
“The AI waves currently lapping at retailers’ shores will become a tidal wave in 2026, when Google launches browser agents in Chrome and this technology has the capacity to reach 3.5 billion users worldwide. Retailers who are not prepared risk losing significant market share to competitors who’ve optimised their sites for this new reality,” Tim O’Neill, co-founder of Time Under Tension, said.
The study tested three newly launched browser agents – OpenAI’s Atlas, Perplexity’s Comet, and Microsoft Edge with Copilot (currently US only) – across a range of common shopping tasks. The results revealed disparities in how retail sites perform when navigated by AI rather than by humans.
JB Hi-Fi, Bing Lee, Priceline and Bunnings emerged as top performers, with clean site structures and minimal friction enabling agents to complete tasks quickly and accurately. JB Hi-Fi topped the leaderboard with agents completing tasks in less than 2.2 minutes and secured product selection with 97 per cent accuracy. By contrast, some retailers faced consistent challenges with bot verification systems that blocked legitimate shopping attempts.
“The single biggest barrier we discovered was bot verification. Nearly half of all test runs hit some form of human verification challenge. The irony is that retailers are blocking their future customers while trying to prevent malicious bots,” O’Neill added.
The research identified six key recommendations for retailers preparing for agentic commerce: rethink bot blocking to recognise legitimate browser agents; make sites predictable with consistent layouts and semantic HTML; optimise search results to display key product attributes directly; reduce intrusive pop-ups that block the shopping flow; and regularly test sites with browser agents.
“Time Under Tension has taken a lens across various segments of retail, from CE and Pharmacy to Hardware and Office Supplies, to assess the preparedness of Australian Retailers for the changes coming with Agentic shopping,” Darren Spencer, chief operating officer of retail buying group NARTA added.
The findings show that some retailers are well-positioned, whilst others have work to do. In some examples, they are inadvertently blocking AI shoppers with legacy security systems.
“Preparing for agentic commerce has been commenced by some; however, it should now be a strategic priority for all NARTA members who sell online. We’re encouraging all members to audit and optimise their websites to ensure they are keeping pace with the changing technologies and platforms we, and our customers increasingly have available to us on the shopping journey,” Spencer said.
The shift to agentic commerce represents a fundamental change in how people will shop online. Instead of clicking through product pages and comparison shopping manually, consumers will simply tell an AI agent what they need. The agent handles the rest – searching, comparing, and selecting products autonomously.
This report highlights a shift that all NARTA members need to ensure they are prepared for. With ChatGPT Instant Checkout launching soon in Australia, agentic commerce isn’t a distant future; it will be here before we know it.
