Manil Uppal on Solving Agentic Checkout: How CartAI Is Building the Execution Layer for AI Commerce
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.
👉 Connect with Manil: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maniluppal/
👉 Learn more about CartAI: https://www.cartai.ai
👉 Explore their substack: https://substack.com/@cartai
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