Manil Uppal on Solving Agentic Checkout: How CartAI Is Building the Execution Layer for AI Commerce - Retailgentic

Topics in this episode

agentic retail ecommerce optimization trends

Episode notes

In this episode of Retailgentic, Scot Wingo talks with Manil Uppal, Founder & CEO of CartAI, about building the “execution layer” of agentic commerce, where AI agents don’t just recommend products, they buy them. From his early startups acquired by H-E-B and UPS to his vision for CartAI, Manil shares how his team is solving the hardest problem in agentic shopping: completing checkout seamlessly across any retailer. Key Timestamps 00:02:00 - Manil’s background: from delivery startups to AI infrastructure 00:09:00 - The “aha” moment: from “Where to Buy” to “Go Buy It” 00:15:00 - The 3 layers of Agentic Commerce: Catalog, Payments, Checkout 00:20:00 - How CartAI executes merchant-native checkouts across platforms 00:26:00 - Why retailers need a whitelist for good agents 00:33:00 - Handling out-of-stocks, variants, and dynamic pricing 00:40:00 - Thoughts on ChatGPT’s new ACP standard 00:43:00 - Lessons from early food delivery startups for agentic commerce 00:46:00 - The future: vertical AI apps, expert agents, and commerce everywhere Agentic commerce is evolving fast and CartAI is building the rails to make it work.