Kiri Master's Round 2: The Ad Wars Come to Agentic Commerce

Retail media has been a profit engine for retailers, especially onsite sponsored product ads with massive margins. But what happens when shopping shifts from browsing and searching to AI agents that “decide the SKU” before a shopper ever hits a retailer site? In this episode, Scot and Kiri map the collision course between retail media networks and agentic commerce, walk through emerging ad formats from Google, Amazon (Rufus), and LLMs, and dig into the hardest problem of all: monetizing AI attention without breaking trust.What’s Covered:Why agentic shopping compresses the journey, and shrinks onsite ad inventoryThe “two threats” to onsite retail mediaHow offsite retail media depends on audience signals that may dry up as browsing declinesWhy in-store media may be the most resilient channel Google’s “Direct Offers,” the rise of an agentic storefront, and what it unlocksThe emerging idea of “Agentic PLAs” and retailers bidding at the SKU level (Buy Box vibes)Kiri’s wishlist: multimodal ads (video/try-ons), offsite audience extension, and contextual targeting over “creepy” behavioral retargetingAgentic commerce won’t kill advertising, but it will force it to evolve fast. The winners will be the platforms that can monetize attention without sacrificing trust, and the brands/retailers that learn to show up in these new surfaces early.Timestamps00:05:04 — Meet Kiri Masters + Retail Media Breakfast Club00:08:01 — The three buckets: onsite, offsite, in-store retail media00:10:01 — Why onsite is the money machine (and most vulnerable)00:11:11 — Offsite retail media + closed-loop attribution00:14:23 — In-store media: small today, resilient tomorrow00:16:11 — Are retailers already seeing traffic shifts? Category matters00:19:27 — ChatGPT ads: early signals and why it’s still rudimentary00:21:22 — Scott’s framework: ad formats + Instant Checkout incentives00:23:06 — Google’s “Direct Offers” and the agentic storefront idea00:25:10 — Collaborative bidding: retailer + brand split the spend00:28:11 — Google testing new units: “Agentic PLA” / paid retailer placement00:33:14 — Trust vs monetization: don’t break the golden goose00:34:04 — Amazon Rufus: sponsored prompts as a new surface00:39:08 — Instacart’s ad playbook + trade dollars as inspiration00:40:38 — Why it’s not a race to the bottom: service layers + loyalty00:43:24 — The big hope: context-based targeting over creepy retargetingk00:46:52 — If Kiri ran ChatGPT ads: offsite + multimodal + new formats00:48:04 — Virtual try-ons + “throw away the sponsored product textbook”00:50:00 — Closing + follow Retailgentic👉 Connect with Kiri: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kiri-masters/👉 Learn more about Retail Media Breakfast Club: https://www.retailmediabreakfastclub.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