Australian retailers are unprepared for the arrival of AI-powered shopping agents, with some major retail sites inadvertently blocking the customers they're trying to serve, according to a study.
The State of Browser Agents in Australian Retail report by AI specialist agency Time Under Tension tested 11 major Australian retailers including JB Hi-Fi, Bunnings, Chemist Warehouse and Officeworks.
"The AI waves currently lapping at retailers' shores will become a tidal wave in 2026, when Google launches browser agents in Chrome and this technology has the capacity to reach 3.5 billion users worldwide," said Time Under Tension co-founder Tim O'Neill.
"Retailers who are not prepared risk losing significant market share to competitors who've optimised their sites for this new reality."
The study tested three newly launched browser agents across a range of common shopping tasks, revealing significant disparities in how retail sites perform when navigated by AI rather than by humans.
Results showed browser agents successfully completed shopping tasks 79% of the time, but variation between retailers was stark.
JB Hi-Fi, Bing Lee, Priceline and Bunnings emerged as standout performers, with clean site structures and minimal friction enabling agents to complete tasks quickly and accurately.
JB Hi-Fi topped the leader board with agents completing tasks in less than 2.2 minutes and securing product selection with 97% accuracy.
"The single biggest barrier we discovered was bot verification," O'Neill said.
"Nearly half of all test runs hit some form of human verification challenge. The irony is that retailers are blocking their future customers while trying to prevent malicious bots."
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