Inside Vendee Labs: Darryl Carlton and Ross Gardiner on Building Buyer-First Agentic Commerce

In this episode, we take a deep dive into what buyer-side agentic commerce could actually look like. The conversation explores the origins of the company, why Darryl and Ross focused on reducing friction for buyers, and how that unexpectedly opened up solutions for sellers, payment providers, and enterprise procurement teams as well.The episode also features a live demo of Vendee Labs’ platform, showing conversational discovery, real-time product retrieval, multi-vendor carting, and a multi-item ACP checkout flow. HighlightsWhy Vendee Labs is approaching agentic commerce from the buyer’s perspectiveThe founding story behind the company and the friction that inspired itHow ChatGPT and Claude changed the direction of the productA live demo of conversational commerce across real merchantsWhat a multi-vendor, multi-item ACP checkout could mean for online shoppingWhy autonomous commerce needs legal and governance frameworks, not just AIThe vision for a Universal Protocol Bridge across ACP, UCP, and future standardsHow strong permissions and audit trails could reduce chargebacks and disputesWhy poor product data creates broken outcomes in agentic shoppingWhere Vendee Labs sees opportunity across consumer, B2B, procurement, and white-label use casesVendee Labs is betting that the future of commerce won’t just be agent-powered—it will be buyer-centered, trust-driven, and built to work across whatever protocols come next.Timestamps: 00:06:09 — Ross shares his background in global technology planning and delivery 00:07:23 — Darryl shares his background in retail IT, telecom, AI, and governance 00:08:53 — Darryl reflects on AI before and after the ChatGPT moment 00:10:03 — Discussion on LLMs, explainability, and true intelligence 00:11:26 — The founding story behind Vendee Labs 00:13:13 — How the product evolved into its current form 00:16:06 — The Vendee Labs pitch: changing how the world buys 00:17:06 — Why solving buyer friction also solves seller-side pain points 00:20:18 — Live demo begins 00:21:10 — Running shoes search and conversational discovery demo 00:25:42 — Multi-vendor cart and checkout walkthrough 00:31:06 — Why richer product data is critical for agentic commerce 00:35:46 — Consumer, B2B, procurement, and white-label distribution paths 00:38:46 — Team size, bootstrapping, and current company stage 00:40:39 — Ross outlines roadmap, buyer taxonomy, and MVP plans 00:42:15 — Scot and Darryl discuss adoption speed in agentic commerce 00:44:18 — Darryl’s theory on trust events and adoption 00:45:34 — Governance-by-design versus fixing broken outputs later 00:47:46 — Where to learn more and try the demo👉 Connect with Darryl: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrylcarlton/👉 Connect with Ross: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rossgardiner/👉 Check out the demo: https://vendeelabs.com/🧠 Want to stay ahead in AI commerce? Subscribe and follow along:📰 Subscribe to the free Substack: retailgentic.ai📺 Watch episodes on YouTube & Subscribe for updates: https://www.youtube.com/@Retailgentic