Firmly is giving online shoppers a new way to browse and buy products without leaving a retailer’s website. Its new Ask Agent feature lets customers describe what they’re looking for, ask questions about products and complete their purchase directly within a chat. The tool searches the retailer’s live product catalogue, matching everyday requests with relevant items while keeping the conversation and checkout in one place.
The launch comes as Firmly secures $15 million in Series A funding led by Squarepoint Capital. The investment will support the global expansion of Firmly Connect, the company’s commerce platform, which helps retailers connect their product catalogues to different shopping channels, including AI agents and online marketplaces.
Rather than building a separate connection for every new shopping platform, merchants can use Firmly Connect to make their products available across multiple channels. Ask Agent brings that approach directly to retailer websites, combining product discovery, customer support and payment in a single chat experience.
Image Credit: Retail Technology Innovation Hub, firmly
Part of the cluster
Delegated Shopping
Retailers are outsourcing discovery, selection and purchasing to software
Explore the cluster
What's Driving This Trend
- Conversational Checkout
- Chat-based buying flows compress discovery, support and payment into one interface, creating room for retailers to reduce friction and capture purchase intent in real time.
- AI Product Discovery
- Natural-language catalogue search reshapes merchandising by translating vague shopper needs into relevant product matches and personalized recommendations.
- Unified Commerce Channels
- Centralized product connectivity across websites, marketplaces and AI agents enables merchants to scale distribution without rebuilding integrations for every platform.
Who This Affects Most
- E-commerce
- Retail websites gain new competitive potential as embedded AI assistants turn browsing sessions into guided, transaction-ready shopping experiences.
- Retail Technology
- Commerce infrastructure providers can differentiate by linking live inventory, conversational interfaces and payments into modular tools for merchants.
- Digital Payments
- In-chat purchasing expands payment contexts beyond traditional checkout pages, opening pathways for more seamless and contextual transaction systems.
