JD Sports Fashion has announced a new global agreement with digital commerce platform provider commercetools to enhance the use of AI platforms.
The deal will allow customers to search for and purchase products directly through AI platforms such as Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, without leaving those apps.
The move comes as major AI firms in the US begin to enable direct purchasing ahead of a wider global rollout.
Launching first in the US, the London-listed retail giant will partner with commercetools and payments specialist Stripe to become the first retailer to deploy their joint Agentic Commerce Suite (ACS).
The technology connects AI-driven product discovery directly to secure checkout and payments, enabling one-click purchases from within AI interfaces.
The business said it will also invest in optimising how its product content, pricing and inventory data is surfaced inside AI platforms, making it easier for customers to find JD stores and products through conversational search.
North America is the Greater Manchester-based company’s largest market, accounting for around 40% of global sales, and the agreement builds on the retailer’s recent re-platforming of its US eCommerce operations using commercetools.
“This agreement places JD right at the forefront of AI commerce,” said Regis Schultz, CEO of JD Sports Fashion.
“We want to reach customers wherever shopping decisions are happening, and make it easy for them to complete a purchase.
“As AI becomes a real entry point for commerce, our partnership with commercetools and Stripe will allow customers using AI for searches to find and transact with JD quicker and easier, at the click of a button through those channels, without adding complexity to our operations.
“This strengthens our digital proposition for customers, and keeps us moving in line with the fast-changing retail landscape.
“We see AI as a real opportunity to improve our customers’ experience with JD, as well as making our own operations more efficient, and so I’m really pleased that with this big step forward we are putting our words into action.”
Dirk Hoerig, founder and chief innovation officer of commercetools, added: “AI is quickly becoming part of how customers discover products, and retailers need a way to participate without adding complexity behind the scenes.
“JD Sports is pushing the industry forward by treating AI as a real channel for serving customers, not just a concept.
“commercetools created an approach that lets shoppers move from discovery to purchase in a single step, while giving JD Sports the accuracy, governance, and operational control an enterprise business requires. It’s a meaningful step toward making AI-driven commerce real for consumers at scale.”
Under the new agreement, commercetools’ end-to-end commerce infrastructure will connect directly to AI platforms via ACS, while Stripe will handle secure payments.
This is to help ensure real-time accuracy on product availability and pricing, even as transactions originate from outside traditional web or app environments.
The FTSE 100 member still has a market cap of over £4.1 billion despite seeing its shares slide by almost 13% to 84.1p over the last 12 months.