Agentic commerce, buyer-first
Agentic commerce is the next layer of the internet: AI agents that discover, negotiate and complete transactions on behalf of a person, a family, a business, a charity or a community. It's already being defined by the platforms that stand to earn commissions on it.
Vendee Labs builds the other side. Infrastructure for agentic commerce that answers to the buyer.
What agentic commerce actually is
A buying agent takes a stated need — a flight, a fridge, a supplier — and does the work: searches, compares, negotiates, transacts, and keeps a record. Unlike a search box, it acts. Unlike a marketplace, it isn't bound to a single storefront.
The interesting question isn't whether these agents will exist. It's whose interest they encode. An agent trained on merchant-paid ranking signals is a sales channel with a chat interface. An agent trained on the buyer's stated preferences is something new.
The commission problem
Every agentic commerce product built by a platform that historically monetised through commissions, affiliate fees or paid placement inherits those incentives. When the agent recommends a merchant, ask what the agent's operator earns from that recommendation. If the answer isn't "nothing," the agent isn't yours.
What buyer-first looks like
Three properties, all technical, all verifiable:
- Local-first. The agent runs on the buyer's own device. Preferences, history and buying behaviour are stored there; online features such as product search send what an action needs, when they are used.
- Commission-blind. Ranking cannot be purchased. The agent has no revenue relationship with any merchant it recommends.
- Signed audit record. Every action the agent takes in the buyer's name is cryptographically logged. The buyer owns the log and can read it.
Where VendeeX fits
VendeeX is our first buying agent. It runs locally, it holds no inventory, it operates no fulfilment centre, and it earns nothing when you buy. It connects buyers to millions of online merchants through an agent that runs on your own laptop and keeps your buying behaviour out of reach of platforms that sell attention.