Issue #109: Is Your Store's Next Employee Claude?

Before we dive in this week, I wanted to highlight two quick things:

Roughly two weeks ago, Claude/Anthropic had some big announcements (No, I am not talking about Dario, their CEO, saying to slow down AI advancements, although that was interesting too). I am referring to some big upgrades to its agentic commerce capabilities. In this press release, it announced two new agents, summary below:

According to Anthropic, customers like Shopify and Priceline are using this technology to build consumer agents. Retailers running shopping agents on Claude have seen order values up to 35% larger and shoppers 60% more likely to complete a purchase. Pretty in line with many of the other reporting we have seen on consumer AI agents. 

From these retailers’ POV, it makes sense to work with an external vendor. Building your own AI tooling is super expensive and requires a ton of maintenance. You can partner with an external vendor to get enough of the benefits. You don’t have to worry about the hassle of building it yourself, especially when most of your core business will be separate.

From an Anthropic POV, I do find it interesting that instead of forcing commerce into their platform and existing chatbot, they are instead focusing more on the B2B angle. Peeling a layer back, however, that is generally their philosophy when building products. Focus on the B2B consumer; let others duke it out for the consumer side. Then, what ends up happening is consumers end up going to them for everything after being so accustomed to using it for most of their time, since they are spending most of the time at work. It will be interesting how much of this infrastructure and data collected can be redeployed if a customer asks Claude to do commerce.

Regardless, I still think there will be use cases for this technology on both the brand and marketplace level. For individual brands that see high eCommerce penetration right now, like apparel, those brands will probably also see high commerce agent success. Similar on the marketplace/general purchases front, like Walmart and Amazon. The big change I predict, however, is that there will be a major opportunity for individual brands to influence purchases not via their own channels, but via these general marketplaces. Let’s say you are a better-for-you frozen brand. D2C will never be a major channel for you. However, if you are able to build out super-rich content, the advantages for you are a new major opportunity, as customers start to have deeper, more in-depth research before purchasing a product.

Every year, Morning Consult takes a look at the brand-level growth in purchase consideration. It provides an interesting window into how consumers are viewing new (or reinvigorated brands) with regard to purchase consideration. 2026 was a tough year for brand growth. Just 14% of brands saw growth in purchase consideration in 2026. This is a five-year low in their tracking, which is very telling about consumers right now. It is also very hard to consistently grow; only 40 of 1,101 continuously tracked brands grew every single year for five years.

This year, Mr. Pibb topped the list of single-year growth, spurred by its relaunch resonating across a variety of different ages. Yes, that random brand that was really only available in Chipotle fountain drinks has been accelerating. I really enjoyed this breakdown from Kevin Ryan talking about how the hype building up over the years was capitalized into increased purchasing. As for Peacock, its continued investments in sports (NBA) and reality TV (Love Island) are really paying off. Interestingly, there are a couple of pure-play retailers on these lists. Five Below and Domino’s value play is standing out. 7 Brew is crushing it in the sweet treat beverage space. I am not sure what Circle K is doing in particular, but they have been growing assortment steadily.

Many businesses have tried to dis-intermediate the current food supply chain and connect customers directly with farmers. Thirteen years ago, Michael Robinov was one of those founders who started Farm to People, which blends traditional à la carte grocery shopping with CSAs (community supported agriculture). All delivered right to your doorstep. Today, the company connects more than 13k monthly customers across New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey with over 200 local farms and food producers. Farm to People is growing 90% year over year, and 4x revenue over the past two years, according to its lead investor. For farmers, they are getting back more money than they typically would through the typical system by removing the intermediaries. Prior to this fundraising, Farm to People had exclusively been bootstrapped, which is a major kudos to the team given the capital-intensive nature of the industry. It will be exciting to see what happens next and whether expansion is on the table. The funding will be used to open a 40k sq ft facility in the Bronx. With FreshDirect struggling, the NYC area market is there for the taking.

In 2018, in Hamburg, Germany, an Olympic field hockey champion partnered with one other person to develop a fun fitness competition that would appeal to avid gym-goers and Strava users. The competition was simple. An 8 km run circuit with a workout station every 1 km. This type of event has clearly resonated with consumers. Last year, there were over 100 events and almost 1.5M people participating. The company is on track to do $270M in revenue in 2026. L Catterton saw the rise of experiences and fitness, and is seeing Hyrox as a potential leader. Hyrox has done all this without a permanent physical presence. I am fascinated to see if that will change. Alongside the investment and $700M valuation, the founders will seemingly be more involved again. Capital will be used to expand in Asia and pursue Olympic consideration.

Ever since coming on the scene, Wonder has been wheeling and dealing throughout the food industry (that’s a compliment). In 2024, Wonder acquired Grubhub from Just Eat Takeaway.com for $650M ($150M in cash and $500M in debt). Now, it just sold a key piece of that business to DoorDash. Grubhub had previously acquired a startup called Tapingo, which enables millions of college students to utilize meal plans to purchase via mobile app or scheduled pickup. This service, renamed Grubhub Campus Dining, is currently liked at 450 colleges and universities. That is less than 10% of colleges in the United States. While I could argue there are merits to Wonder integrating further with colleges, it seems they want to focus on their core families business. DoorDash, on the other hand, is looking for growth and wants to expand, so it purchased that business for $300M. Additionally, DoorDash invested $125M in Wonder's $650M Series D round announced in July. It is not clear if this is a later investment on the same terms or was just a late announcement.

One of the most frequent questions I get asked is what events I go to. That is why I started this section, to share some top events. This week, inspired by some other creators, I went ahead and took that a step further by creating a calendar on Luma. Be sure to follow along so you can easily see the top events in NYC. Be sure to subscribe to that calendar as well! I will still post the top ones here!

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