Ionic Launch: Opening the economy to AI agents

00:00:00.640 | Like I said, I'm Justin, CEO and co-founder of Ionic, and at Ionic, we're on a mission

00:00:20.460 | to help agents interact with the economy, starting with e-commerce.

00:00:24.960 | Why?

00:00:25.960 | Well, when we started working with agents, we wanted them to be able to do things for

00:00:29.680 | us on our behalf.

00:00:30.680 | We wanted them to be able to order the Uber to the airport later today.

00:00:33.360 | We wanted them to be able to find the perfect gift for Mom for Mother's Day, find the best

00:00:37.980 | hotel for that last-minute weekend trip.

00:00:40.140 | And when we started working on those types of tasks and those types of problems, we quickly

00:00:44.560 | ran into a set of issues.

00:00:47.540 | And what we learned is that for the last 30 years, we've built a world for ads and not

00:00:52.560 | for actions.

00:00:53.560 | Agents, we want them to do things on our behalf, and so we need to change that paradigm.

00:00:57.020 | So let's give you an example of kind of what that looks like.

00:00:59.360 | So, code here on the left is the data feed for a product.

00:01:05.040 | It's an ad.

00:01:06.360 | That ad is static.

00:01:07.360 | It's meant for a human to see it, a human to click on it, go somewhere else, maybe go somewhere

00:01:11.960 | else after that, learn some more, come back, and make a transaction happen.

00:01:15.540 | I don't know about you, but I don't need my agent bouncing from site to site to do things.

00:01:20.360 | For me, I want it to all happen in one place.

00:01:22.360 | And so, what does that mean?

00:01:23.360 | Well, it means in the future, I want my agent to know that I don't wear an extra large shirt.

00:01:28.040 | I wear a shirt that's measured 21 inches from the top to the bottom, that I don't need a

00:01:32.440 | cotton blend.

00:01:33.720 | I need 7% modal.

00:01:34.720 | I need a certain percentage of cotton, right?

00:01:37.040 | And so, those are the types of things that we can have our agents do.

00:01:40.040 | But where we're starting today, these ad feeds on the left, they don't even know if a product

00:01:44.720 | is in stock.

00:01:45.720 | They're shipping.

00:01:46.720 | They're static.

00:01:47.720 | They're not dynamic.

00:01:48.720 | So, what are we doing?

00:01:50.720 | We're building an ecosystem where we have partnerships with hundreds of merchants.

00:01:55.100 | They give us access to that product feed that they have.

00:01:58.800 | And then, we are using agentic workflow to enrich that data with the loop here on the bottom.

00:02:03.700 | We're taking editorial, product reviews, anything else that we need or that your agent will find

00:02:08.840 | interesting and putting that all in one place.

00:02:11.520 | Importantly, it's in the format that an agent wants to see, whether that's a relational

00:02:16.280 | database, a vector store, a graphical database.

00:02:19.640 | We'll continue to grow and work with everyone here as we continue to progress on how that data

00:02:25.820 | should be accessed.

00:02:27.900 | That's in all access via our API.

00:02:29.960 | That API is live today and is usable by anyone in this room.

00:02:36.500 | But, after we have the data in the right place to make a decision, we then, again, like I

00:02:41.260 | said, we don't need to be bouncing around.

00:02:43.260 | We want that transaction to happen, that action to happen right in the same layer.

00:02:47.740 | And so, from here, you can see this example of me potentially finding headphones for my flight

00:02:52.400 | later today.

00:02:53.260 | And once we've made that decision, my agent's worked with me on my behalf, we can just say,

00:02:58.260 | "Yeah, I want to check out."

00:03:00.020 | And the payment token can come through and we can complete the transaction immediately.

00:03:05.020 | That's the way it should be.

00:03:06.020 | Agents should be able to do all these things in one simple step.

00:03:09.720 | Okay.

00:03:10.720 | So, we've talked about better decisions.

00:03:12.480 | We've talked about better actions.

00:03:13.480 | The last part, the secret.

00:03:14.480 | We'll talk about better monetization.

00:03:17.480 | Okay.

00:03:18.480 | So, consumer AI products.

00:03:19.480 | I think I saw this tweet on the left the week I had signed up for my fourth pro subscription

00:03:25.040 | of the month.

00:03:26.540 | And it just really resonated with me that we're not going to be able to charge consumers for

00:03:30.100 | our AI products a $20 a month subscription fee forever.

00:03:33.240 | It'll work for the early adopters, but it's not mass market.

00:03:37.960 | The secret is that merchants will pay everyone in this room to help them find the right consumer

00:03:44.780 | and match them to the best products.

00:03:46.840 | We're starting with e-commerce today.

00:03:47.840 | Again, like I said, eventually that'll be hotel rooms, it'll be flights, it'll be everything.

00:03:51.120 | But, you know, I'll give you an example.

00:03:54.240 | We've seen some cool demos out there where people are sending agents out.

00:03:57.600 | They go and they buy something on Amazon and we all like clap and we repost it on Twitter

00:04:01.200 | and like, yes, that is cool.

00:04:03.380 | But for that merchant on the other side of the transaction, they're just paying Amazon.

00:04:07.280 | Amazon is taking all the credit.

00:04:09.160 | And so if we're going through the process of enriching a data feed and we're helping agents

00:04:13.600 | understand what consumers want and we're making better decisions happen and transactions happen,

00:04:18.600 | instead of a merchant getting a yes, you checked out from Amazon and that being at the end of

00:04:23.320 | the day, they know what data was going out into the world, what models saw it, how they used

00:04:28.760 | it, what the action flow was, the transaction took place.

00:04:32.160 | And then they're able to understand from that customer the ongoing relationship and they're

00:04:36.200 | willing to pay for that and they'd rather pay you for that than Amazon.

00:04:39.480 | Side note, Amazon will also pay you as well, just not as much.

00:04:44.040 | Okay.

00:04:45.040 | And so to get that started, we've created relationships with hundreds of merchants.

00:04:49.040 | You can work with them immediately today.

00:04:53.320 | We've got a catalog that's already enabled with millions of SKUs.

00:04:56.360 | He said it's AI native and it keeps growing.

00:05:00.420 | We're hiring.

00:05:01.420 | If you want to work with us, it's Justin or Owen at Ionic Commerce.

00:05:03.920 | If you want to get started, check out the docs.

00:05:05.920 | It's docs.ioniccommerce.com.

00:05:08.800 | Thank you.

00:05:09.160 | Thanks.

00:05:10.160 | Thanks.

00:05:11.160 | Thanks.

00:05:12.160 | Thanks.

00:05:13.160 | Thanks.

00:05:14.160 | Thanks.

00:05:15.160 | Thanks.

00:05:16.160 | Thanks.

00:05:17.160 | Thanks.

00:05:18.160 | Thanks.

00:05:19.160 | Thanks.

00:05:20.160 | Thanks.

00:05:21.160 | Thanks.

00:05:22.160 | Thanks.

00:05:23.160 | Thanks.

00:05:24.160 | Thanks.

00:05:25.160 | We'll see you next time.