Anthropic unveils open-source commerce agents for retail and beyond

Anthropic has released an open-source blueprint for commerce agents under the Apache-2.0 license, enabling developers to build shopping and merchant agents across retail, travel, telecom, and entertainment. The project, named 'anthropics/commerce-agents', includes a shopping agent and a merchant agent, along with four verticals. It is deployable on multiple platforms, including the Claude API, Amazon Bedrock, Microsoft Foundry, and Google Cloud Vertex AI. The shopping agent operates within a merchant’s app, handling tasks like catalog search, cart management, and customer support. The merchant agent supports store staff with insights on sales performance, inventory, and marketing. Both agents can be deployed via three methods: the Messages API, the Claude Agent SDK, and Claude Managed Agents (beta). Anthropic emphasizes the benefits of a unified agent with modular skills over subagents, reporting improved quality and efficiency in enterprise deployments. The project also includes tools for scaffolding and reviewing agents, with a focus on reducing latency and enhancing user experience through streaming and prompt caching.