The marketing playbook hasn't changed much for years: compete for attention. Buy the click. Capture the scroll. Optimize the funnel. But as customers hand more decisions to AI, the rules of attention are changing.
Choice is no longer simply human or machine. Sometimes people want to stay firmly in control. Sometimes they’re happy for AI to take over. And increasingly, the decision sits somewhere in between.
We call this the Delegation Spectrum: a framework that maps how much of a buying decision a person keeps and how much they hand to AI.
How decisions move across the spectrum
At one end of the Delegation Spectrum is full autonomy, where consumers research, compare and buy for themselves. At the other is full delegation, where an AI agent handles everything from discovery to purchase. In between, people may hand AI different parts of the decision: finding options, comparing products, making recommendations or completing the transaction. This depends on three key factors:
The type of purchase
Routine, functional purchases like groceries or household essentials are easier to delegate. Emotional or identity-driven choices like fashion, luxury or travel tend to stay more human.
The emotional impact
The more meaning a decision carries, the harder it is to hand it over. Choosing a birthday gift for someone you love feels very different from replacing a phone charger.
The moment in time
Context changes everything. A rushed Tuesday morning can push us towards delegation, while a lazy Saturday afternoon might have us happily browsing for ourselves.
What makes the Delegation Spectrum powerful is that there is no single consumer delegation profile. The same person can sit at completely different points on the spectrum for different purchases – or even at different moments on the same day.
What keeps a decision human?
Behind all these shifts sits one powerful variable: perceived emotional value. The more a decision matters to us, the more likely we are to keep control. The less it matters, the easier it becomes to delegate. But that emotional value isn’t fixed. Five drivers can push a decision towards or away from delegation:
Risk
How bad would it feel to get this wrong? A purchase with high perceived risk keeps the human in control. Nobody wants an agent to choose their wedding suit. But the risk of getting the wrong brand of dishwasher tablets feels negligible, making delegation easy and natural.
Price
Higher prices generally increase emotional involvement and therefore resistance to delegation. Although what feels expensive is not absolute. A €500 purchase means something very different to different consumers, which is why perceived emotional value is personal rather than universal.
Trust
This operates on two levels: trust in the agent's capability to make a good decision, and trust in the technology itself to act securely and in your interest. As both forms of trust grow through positive experiences, the willingness to delegate increases proportionally.
Frequency
Repetitive purchases naturally migrate towards delegation over time. The first time you order groceries online feels like a considered decision. The fiftieth time it is pure routine. Frequency reduces emotional engagement and makes delegation feel obvious.
Experience
Successful delegation builds confidence and makes the next decision easier to hand over. But the reverse is just as powerful. A single negative experience can dramatically drop trust, making the quality and reliability of early delegation experiences absolutely critical.
Crucially, these drivers don’t work in isolation. A high-value purchase might become easy to delegate when it’s frequent and trust is high. A low-cost purchase might remain stubbornly human when getting it wrong carries emotional weight. For businesses, understanding how these forces combine helps predict where customers are likely to sit on the Delegation Spectrum for different products and moments.
“With delegation, no single rule applies. The same consumer will delegate differently depending on the purchase, the moment and their emotional state.”
Dirk Jan van de Pol, Head of Commerce, Empathy Lab
The touchpoints that matter are changing
Where a customer sits on the Delegation Spectrum doesn’t just change who makes the decision. It changes where brands have the opportunity to influence it. As agents take on more of the journey, businesses need to think less about channels and more about which touchpoints are gaining or losing importance.
Some will decrease in value. If an agent handles discovery and comparison, traditional search visibility or product listing pages may have less influence on the human customer. Others will become more valuable because they are among the few moments of direct brand interaction left. Delivery, for example, can become a powerful human moment when an agent has handled everything that came before it.
And entirely new touchpoints will emerge. One of the biggest could be preference setting: the moment customers tell their agent what they value, prioritize and avoid. Influence those preferences, and a brand could influence many of the delegated decisions that follow.
The challenge for marketers is to understand which moments are moving to agents, which remain human, and where new opportunities to influence both are emerging.
“Rethinking the weight and strategy around each of these touchpoints is the most important work businesses can do to prepare for the Delegation Economy.”
Dirk Jan van de Pol, Head of Commerce, Empathy Lab
The new rules of being chosen
Agentic commerce isn’t simply a technology challenge. It’s a strategic shift that changes how brands build preference, earn trust and influence decisions. Preparing for it means looking across the business, from data and infrastructure to customer strategy, marketing and the experiences that differentiate your brand.
The companies best placed to win will be those treating agentic commerce as a strategic priority now, rather than waiting for delegation to become the norm. We see four priorities:
Map the spectrum
Move beyond the linear funnel and map where your customers are likely to delegate and where they want to stay in control. Then identify what your brand needs to do to win at each point.
Build preference upstream
Brand love needs to exist before an agent enters the picture. Build the emotional connection and reputation that make you a preferred choice long before a purchase is being considered.
Make trust a purchase signal
Earn the credibility that gives customers confidence to choose you and even override an agent’s recommendation.
Optimize for machines, connect with humans
Structure your data so agents can find, understand and trust you, while creating experiences that remain distinctive, relevant and deeply human.
The art of human persuasion still matters. So does the new science of being chosen by agents. Take our free Agentic Commerce Readiness Starter Assessment to see where you’re ready to compete, where the gaps are and what to prioritize next.
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