Log in Get started

Free monthly newsletter

The Chai

Agentic commerce, steeped monthly. The signal on AI in commerce, minus the hype, in one sharp read on the platforms, launches and moves reshaping how people buy.

Free forever One email a month Unsubscribe anytime

The latest issue

Fresh off the press

The Chai, Issue No. 03, September 2026. Cover shows a shop door standing open at night with warm light spilling onto an empty street.

September 2026

Issue No. 03

The Chai

by

Nobody asked you whether you wanted to sell to agents.

How AI is changing what gets bought and sold

UCP breaks its own schemas

Then it carries live Shopify checkout.

The trust layer got priced

Before anybody wrote the rule.

Issue No. 03 · September 2026

Nobody asked you whether you wanted to sell to agents.

Meta shipped a shopping agent, Shopify opened every store to it and Amazon shut it out. Plus UCP breaks its schemas and the labs ask to be slowed down.

Third edition · September 2026 · 15 min read

Read Issue No. 03 Subscribe free

Why steep with us

A read worth the ten minutes

Steeped monthly

One considered edition a month. No daily noise, no filler, no inbox fatigue.

Signal, not hype

Plain reads on the platforms, launches and shifts that actually move commerce forward.

Made for operators

Written for the people running stores, not for the timeline. Practical, sharp, useful.

The archive

Every issue, one place

Three issues are live, with a new edition steeping every month.

The Chai, Issue No. 03, September 2026. Cover shows a shop door standing open at night with warm light spilling onto an empty street.

Nobody asked you whether you wanted to sell to agents.

How AI is changing what gets bought and sold

UCP breaks its own schemas

Then it carries live Shopify checkout.

The trust layer got priced

Before anybody wrote the rule.

Issue No. 03 · September 2026

Nobody asked you whether you wanted to sell to agents.

Overhead photograph of hundreds of identical grey shopping baskets in a grid, with one basket lifted and lit gold as the only full one, representing the small share of AI-referred retail traffic that carries most of the value.

AI traffic converts 60 percent better. You barely get any.

How AI is changing what gets bought and sold

A stateless spec, with agent identity next on the roadmap.

The basket-lift numbers are grocery numbers

Etsy’s agentic traffic stayed under one percent.

Issue No. 02 · August 2026

AI traffic converts 60 percent better. You barely get any.

The Chai, Issue No. 01

Issue No. 01 · July 2026

Agent checkout went live. The rules for it did not.