🇧🇦Borislav Vukojević: AI agents are not smarter chatbots – they are digital colleagues that act

Artificial intelligence is moving beyond generating answers. The next shift is about taking action.

For Borislav Vukojević, Assistant Professor, researcher, and AI consultant, this transition from generative AI to autonomous AI agents could fundamentally reshape how businesses approach e-commerce. Instead of simply answering customer questions, AI agents are increasingly able to discover products, compare options, understand prices and availability, evaluate delivery and return policies, and move customers closer to completing a purchase.

This creates a new challenge for online businesses: it will no longer be enough to build a storefront that is easy for people to navigate. Businesses will also need to become understandable, trustworthy, and actionable for AI agents.

Ahead of the E-commerce Conference 2026, we spoke with Borislav about the rise of agentic commerce, why companies should redesign workflows before investing in AI tools, how smaller regional businesses can benefit from this transformation, and what e-commerce could look like over the next two to three years.

His key message is simple: don’t just design the prompt – design the workflow.

1. What is the most important trend or shift in your industry that businesses should be paying attention to right now?
The most important shift is from AI that generates answers to AI that completes outcomes. In e-commerce, agents can already discover products, compare options, check policies and inventory, and move toward checkout. Businesses must now ask not only, “Can customers find us?” but “Can an AI agent understand, trust, and transact with us?”

2. Looking at today’s business landscape, what is one common mistake you see companies making, and how can they avoid it?
The most common mistake is buying AI tools before redesigning a workflow. That produces impressive demos, but little business impact. Start with one repetitive, high-friction process, define the result, connect the right data and tools, and keep human approval where risk is high.

3. What excites you most about the future of e-commerce, marketing, and tech?
What excites me most is that AI can give small regional teams capabilities that once required enterprise budgets and headcount. A retailer in the Balkans can localize, support customers, analyze data, and test campaigns across markets much faster—while people focus on judgment, relationships, and brand.

4. What insights, ideas, or perspectives will you bring to the audience at the E-commerce Conference 2026, and what is the one thing you hope that participants will remember?
I will show the difference between a chatbot that talks and an agent that acts, using practical e-commerce workflows rather than distant predictions. If participants remember one thing, I hope it is this: an AI agent is not a smarter chatbot; it is a digital colleague with a goal, tools, and permission to act—so design the workflow, not just the prompt.

5. Looking ahead to the next 2–3 years, how do you see e-commerce evolving—especially with the rise of AI, automation, and changing consumer behavior?
Over the next 2–3 years, e-commerce will become more conversational for customers and more machine-readable behind the scenes. Shoppers will increasingly delegate discovery, comparison, and parts of purchasing to agents, so product data, live availability, delivery terms, returns, and reputation will matter as much as storefront design. The winners will combine agent-ready infrastructure with distinctly human trust.