TCC Global, the 30-year-old global loyalty marketing company that works with more than 120 of the world’s largest retailers, including Kroger, Albertsons, Carrefour, Lidl, Coles and REWE, today announces the publication of a new e-book, Loyalty 3.0 in the Age of Agentic Commerce: Why Emotional Loyalty Becomes the Fourth Dimension and Multiplier of Agentic Grocery Decision-Making.

WHAT: The white paper is the first industry playbook to address a specific, near-term threat to grocery retailers: the rise of AI shopping agents that research, compare, build and increasingly purchase grocery baskets on a shopper’s behalf. The report argues that once agents materially influence purchasing, traditional loyalty levers like points, coupons and promotions lose their power, and retailers risk being reduced to interchangeable “fulfillment layers” chosen on price and speed alone.

To counter this, the authors lay out a two-track, 18-month strategy:

  • Track One — Becoming Agent-Ready: Simplify loyalty economics into computable value, clean up product and pricing data, build an API layer, pilot subscription models and install guardrails.

  • Track Two — Building Emotional Defensibility: Create cultural, aspirational and community-based rewards that give shoppers a reason to instruct their AI agent to prefer one retailer’s ecosystem over another, turning “emotional loyalty” into what the authors call the fourth dimension and multiplier of agentic grocery decision-making, alongside lifestyle, mission and financial goals.

WHERE: Loyalty 3.0 in the Age of Agentic Commerce is available as a free download at www.tccglobal.com.

WHY: Morgan Stanley estimates agentic shoppers could account for $190 billion to $385 billion in U.S. e-commerce spending by 2030. Grocery is uniquely exposed because it combines frequent, routine, price-sensitive and time-sensitive purchases, the conditions where shoppers are most willing to delegate decisions to an agent. The authors argue that grocers who wait until AI agents control roughly 30% of baskets to rethink loyalty will be negotiating from a position of weakness. The window to prepare is closing now, even though consumer adoption still looks small today.

HOW: The report combines a review of live industry activity like Albertsons’ Safeway plugin in ChatGPT, Walmart’s Sparky assistant and Schnucks’ AI shopping assistant with proprietary TCC research and a five-stage model of shopper trust, from “Exploration and Assisted Discovery” through full “Integrated and Predictive Autonomy.” It closes with a new measurement framework for the agentic era, including metrics such as “share of baskets AI-assisted” and “loyalty prompt preference rate,” and real-world case studies of emotional loyalty in action.

Key Statistics from the Report

  • The global AI-agent market is projected to grow from $7.8 billion in 2025 to more than $50 billion by 2030, one of the sharpest growth curves in the AI landscape (IGD).

  • Agentic shoppers could represent $190 billion to $385 billion in U.S. e-commerce spending by 2030 (Morgan Stanley).

  • 55% of consumers would welcome AI automatically reordering everyday household items when they run low, and 64% are open to AI brand recommendations (Koddi).

  • 43% of retailers are already piloting autonomous AI agents, and a further 53% are evaluating or exploring use cases (eMarketer).

  • In-store shopping still accounts for 80% of U.S. grocery purchases today (WGSN), and 4 in 10 U.S. retail executives plan to reinvest in store experience to attract more traffic (Deloitte).

Quotes From TCC

Julie Lyle, Board Member, TCC Global:

“The retailers that win in an agentic world will be the ones who treat this as infrastructure, not a marketing campaign. You have about 18 months to make your loyalty economics computable, your data clean and your pricing logic trustworthy enough for a machine to act on. Wait until agents control a third of the basket, and you’re rebuilding under pressure instead of leading from strength.”

Seb Hill, Chief Marketing Officer, TCC Global:

“AI agents are moving grocery from a world where retailers compete for shopper attention to one where they have to compete for algorithmic inclusion. That’s a fundamental shift, and most loyalty programs simply weren’t built for it. If your rewards require manual clipping or your pricing logic is inconsistent, an agent won’t just ignore it, it will actively route around it.”

About TCC Global

TCC Global is a global retail performance and loyalty marketing company that creates high-participation, high-engagement loyalty programs and platforms that influence, recognize and reward shopper behavior in-store and online. Founded more than 30 years ago and active in over 70 countries, TCC has delivered more than 8,000 campaigns for over 120 of the world’s largest retailers, including Carrefour, REWE Group, Kroger, Albertsons, Penny, Esselunga, Aldi, Lidl and Coles, and partners with globally recognized entertainment and consumer brands such as Netflix and MasterChef. Learn more at www.tccglobal.com.

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