Manil Uppal at CartAI : Building the Checkout Automation Layer for Agentic Commerce
Manil Uppal unpacks how AI agents will actually complete purchases online, and what it means for merchants, consumers, and the future of retail.
Manil Uppal, Founder of CartAI, a company building one of the most critical yet complex layers of agentic commerce: agentic checkout.
Before CartAI, Manil founded and sold two companies, Lash Delivery (acquired by H-E-B) and Delivery Solutions(acquired by UPS), giving him a rare, hands-on view of how logistics, fulfillment, and payments collide in e-commerce. Now he’s applying that experience to solve a new frontier: enabling AI agents to buy products autonomously, across any retailer, while staying merchant-native.
Listen/Watch Our Interview:
In this episode, Scot sits down with Manil, founder and CEO of CartAI, a company building one of the most critical yet complex layers of agentic commerce: agentic checkout. The discuss:
Why agentic checkout is the hardest part of the AI shopping revolution
How CartAI enables “Buy Now” or “Buy For Me” buttons across any retailer
The challenge of being seen as a “good bot” in a world of bot blockers
The three foundational layers of agentic commerce: Catalog, Payments, and Checkout
Why Amazon, Google, and OpenAI’s new protocols (ACP, AP2, MCP) matter
How CartAI could transform affiliate links, recipe apps, and CPG brand sites into instant checkouts
What an “Agentic Execution Layer” means for vertical apps and the merchants behind them
Agentic commerce isn’t just about discovery, it’s about execution. And as Scot and Manil make clear, whoever cracks seamless, merchant-native checkout for AI agents could define the next trillion-dollar layer of retail.
👉 Learn more about CartAI: https://www.cartai.ai
👉 Explore their substack: https://substack.com/@cartai
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