Episode
Hamish Gunasekara, CEO of Catalog, on Why Agentic Commerce Starts With Product Data
- Published
- Jan 8, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 2757
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- https://share.transistor.fm/s/3aa9d3cb
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Summary
Consumer behavior doesn’t change overnight, even when the technology is obvious. In this episode of Retailgentic, Scot sits down with Hamish Gunasekara to unpack why agentic commerce is inevitable, why it’s moving slower than the hype suggests, and why product data infrastructure, not checkout, is the real unlock. We cover: Why “fully autonomous shopping” is the wrong definition of agentic commerce Why consumer habits change slower than technology Why global mega-catalogs don’t work (and never really have) How vertical AI shopping experiences can thrive alongside ChatGPT The hidden trust and governance problem no one is talking about Why product catalogs are the hardest unsolved problem in commerce If you’re a retailer, brand, agent builder, or investor trying to understand what actually matters in the agentic commerce stack, this episode is foundational. Timestamps: 02:39 Meet Hamish & the origin of Catalog 04:55 From Afterpay to Cash App Commerce 11:30 The Naya experiment & lessons learned 14:24 How AI is changing discovery 16:08 Why catalog data is broken 18:30 Fundraising & early traction 20:48 Who Catalog is built for 23:20 Why global catalogs don’t work 28:30 The agentic commerce stack 33:40 Defining agentic commerce (correctly) 37:30 Why vertical agents will win 43:45 Trust, governance, and adoption 44:51 Where to learn more 👉 Connect with Hamish: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamish-gunasekara/ 👉 Learn more about Catalog: https://getcatalog.ai/ 🧠 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 🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts: Spotify, Apple, etc: https://retailgentic.transistor.fm