What are Product Agents?
Product Agents are merchant-side AI agents that decide, in real time, what each customer receives: which products, which content, and the best moment to send.
Product Agents are merchant-side AI agents that decide, in real time, what each customer should receive: which products, which content, and the best moment to send. Hello Retail built them to run 1:1 email marketing automatically, so the store reaches every shopper with the right message instead of sending one campaign to everyone.
The name causes some confusion, so this page defines the term precisely and points you to the fuller reading.
Two things Product Agents are not
Not a product-placement agency
A product-placement agency is a marketing firm that arranges for brands to appear in films, television, and influencer content. That is a different industry entirely. Product Agents are software that runs inside an ecommerce store's marketing, not people arranging brand deals.
Not a buyer-side AI shopping assistant
An AI shopping assistant works for the shopper, researching and comparing products on a person's behalf inside tools like ChatGPT. Product Agents work for the store. They act on the merchant's behalf to decide what each customer sees, and when. The two sit on opposite sides of the same transaction.
Where Product Agents fit
Product Agents are Hello Retail's example of merchant-side agentic commerce: AI agents built for the store rather than the shopper. For the wider shift and how it works in practice, read the full explainer. To see the product itself, visit the Product Agents page.
- Product Agents (the product) — what it does and how to get it.
- What is agentic commerce? — the full explainer on merchant-side and buyer-side AI agents.
- Product Agents with Klaviyo — how Product Agents work alongside Klaviyo.
Product Agents: Common questions
What are Product Agents?
Product Agents are merchant-side AI agents that decide, in real time, what each customer should receive: which products, which content, and the best moment to send. Hello Retail built them to run 1:1 email marketing automatically, so the store reaches every shopper with the right message instead of sending one campaign to everyone.
Are Product Agents the same as a product-placement agency?
No. A product-placement agency is a marketing firm that arranges for brands to appear in films, television, and influencer content. That is a different industry. Product Agents are software: autonomous AI agents that run inside an ecommerce store's marketing.
How are Product Agents different from an AI shopping assistant?
An AI shopping assistant works for the shopper. It researches and compares products on a person's behalf inside tools like ChatGPT. Product Agents work for the store. They act on the merchant's behalf to decide what each customer sees, and when.
What do Product Agents do?
For each individual customer, Product Agents choose the right products, the right content, and the right send time, then send the email automatically. They handle replenishment timing, price-drop matching, cross-sell scheduling, and message prioritization, so the store acts proactively instead of waiting for the customer.
Who makes Product Agents?
Product Agents are a Hello Retail product. They are Hello Retail's example of merchant-side agentic commerce, meaning AI agents built for the store rather than the shopper.