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When it comes to agentic artificial intelligence, the fear of missing out factor is clear. Organizations are plopping down agents, in part, because thats what everyone else seems to be doing. But FOMO is not a business strategy. To make agentic AI work, business leaders need to ignore the hype and concentrate on establishing exactly what agents can do for them, how, and at what cost. Our own work has proved that AI agents, which independently plan and execute complex multistep tasks, can deliver substantial value by accelerating timelines and reducing costs. And that is just the start. The ever-improving ability of AI agents to work with people to plan, communicate, and learn, could evolve into a genuine paradigm shift in how business is done. Unclear business value But enthusiasm does not always translate into impact, something that many businesses are beginning to recognize. According to one study, 40% of agentic AI projects could be canceled by the end of 2027 due to unclear business value and escalating costs. In recent research, McKinsey studied dozens of agentic AI initiatives, including 50 in which we were directly involved. With the wisdom of hindsight, weve identified three critical factors in agentic AI success. 1. Start with workflows, not agents Agentic transformations are more likely to succeed when they focus on integrating agents into reimagined workflows, rather than tacking agents onto processes designed for another technological era. And the corollary is also true: even the most powerful AI agent will underperform if it is tethered to faulty and inefficient workflows. Already, agents are being successfully deployed in multi-step, dynamic workflows like IT help desks, software development, and customer service. The boldest leaders are also successfully deploying agents to frontier use cases. For example, an alternative legal services provider found substantial efficiency gains when it carefully modernized its contract review process. Every time a lawyer made a change in the document editor, it was logged, categorized, and fed back into the agents logic and knowledge base. In designing the agentic workflow, the team identified where, when, and how to integrate human input. Agents highlighted edge cases and anomalies for people to review. Over time, the agents were able to codify new expertise and provide more sophisticated legal reasoning, but it was up to the lawyers to sign off on critical decisions. 2. Stop the slop Many enthusiastic early adopters built agents whose outputs have become known as slopthat is, work that may be done quickly but then requires considerable effort to correct. This is annoying. Worse, it breeds distrust in the agents and in the idea of transformation more generally. To do better, companies should invest in agents just as systematically as they do in people, with managers, job descriptions, training, monitoring, and continuous development goals. 3. To support AI agents, engage the workforce It should be humans who onboard, train, and evaluate agents on an ongoing basis: launch and leave is not good enough. As agents begin to accomplish more, roles will shift. Leaders will need to train employees in a new human-agent hybrid operating model, including skills such as building and deploying agents effectively, training them, setting tasks for them, tracking and correcting their work, and stringing them together to perform more complex tasks. The essential principle is that agentic AI needs to work with, not against, time-honored business priorities like productivity and teamwork. The question, then, is not whether to deploy agents, as with any other technology, it is when can they help to solve real-world problems and create value? And the answer is: not always. For tasks related to parsing lengthy documents, generative AI applications such as chatbots are probably the better option. For highly structured or automated tasks like data entry, rules-based approachesif x, then ycan be more efficient. And high-stakes decisions with little room for error are the domain of leaders and managers. Yes, agentic AI could be a once-in-a-generation opportunitythus the FOMO effect. Success will come not from enthusiasm, however, but from a hard-headed analysis of how thistool can be used wiselyfor the right task, at the right time.
Category:
E-Commerce
The early darkness in most of the U.S. means that fall has set in. That also means its officially holiday shopping season. With the economic impact of President Trumps ever-fluctuating tariffs an open question, theres an opportunity for shoppers to make their spending meaningful, which opens up a lane for companies that are offering something other than the e-commerce onslaught of nearly identical products that populate sites like Amazon and Walmart. What the Amazons and even Etsys of the world are currently missing is the sense of curation that defines Uncommon Goods, an online shop stocked with exclusive, offbeat items sourced from independent artisans. Its a cheat code for gift giversmostly signals, very little noise. Each click is a potential epiphany, connecting me to, say, smartphone-controlled paper airplanes for my nephew, or wooden wall art shaped like a soundwave from my wifes favorite song. In the age of the Everything Store, its a Just the Right Thing Store. [Screenshot: Uncommon Goods] The remarkability of Uncommon Goodss inventory has helped grow the shops revenue at an average annual rate of 25% from 2000 to 2020; it has received more than a million orders per year for the past five years. That je ne sais quoi has often caught the attention of Wirecutter, the New York Timess product recommendation vertical, which has highlighted many of its wares. “As gift experts, we spend most of our time scouring the internet, visiting brick-and-mortar shops, and attending trade shows in search of gifts that sit right at the edge of practical and whimsical, with standout quality and value, says Hannah Morrill, Wirecutters gifts editor. Weve noticed that Uncommon Goods tends to prioritize unique products from small makers that we havent seen beforethats pretty rare from a large-scale online retailer.” Of course, as relatively effortless as Uncommon Goods might make holiday shopping, its leadership says that the sites ever-changing, reliably surprising inventory is the culmination of a tremendous amount of work. [Photo: Uncommon Goods] An Uncommon Origin With shopping, a little lore can go a long waymaking some goods seem even better. When an Uncommon Goods artisan has an interesting backstory, those details often make their way into the sites marketing copy. Shoppers are less likely to encounter the sites own origin story. Dave Bolotsky [Photo: Uncommon Goods] Founder and CEO Dave Bolotsky started his career in the mid-80s as an analyst at investment bank First Boston. By 1999, hed become a managing director at Goldman Sachs, where he was due to receive $10 million in stock when the bank went public. Instead, he walked away from the job, leaving that entire imminent windfall on the table. It was just what he felt he had to do. I was not bored once in my 14 years on Wall Street, but it felt soulless, Bolotsky tells Fast Company. I felt like I was helping the wheels of capitalism spin faster, but not necessarily in a better direction. Bolotsky says he got the idea for Uncommon Goods after visiting a Smithsonian Institution craft show. Walking along rows of vendors hawking handcrafted items, he observed how shoppers responded to the personal artisan touch. It raised their eyebrows and spirits as much as it did their inclination to spend money. The only problem was the rarity of such opportunities. Back then, makers had to act as traveling salespeople, schlepping from one regional show to another. It was all too easy to miss them. The insight Bolotsky had was that if he could take a craft show product, put it online, and sell it 24/7, it might be a huge evolutionary leap forward for retailing, and for artisans in particular. The challenge? Online shoppers proved stubbornly hesitant. It was the internets Wild West era, and trusting ones credit card details to an online retailer was still considered fraught. When Bolotsky and his team would scout makers at trade shows, it took a lot just to persuade them that the internet was not inherently evil. He refused to buckle, though, and kept the ship afloat through several rocky, profit-free years. The outlook brightened only after Amazon terraformed the space, Bolotsky admits grudgingly. As much as I don’t like them as a competitor, I do admire what they’ve done, he says. Amazon Prime was huge in driving online shopping. And to an extent, we ride their coattails. One glaring difference between the two, though, is that Amazon has an estimated 300 million to 600 million items for sale at any given moment, while Uncommon Goods hovers around 5,000. [Photo: Uncommon Goods] What uncommon goodness actually looks like The Uncommon Goods site procures roughly 80% of its products through its buying team, while an in-house product development team fills in the remaining 20%, largely through partnerships with a roster of product makers it has worked with before. Although Uncommon Goods doesnt chase trends, it often plays in the same sandbox as whatever is popping off in pop culture. When BookTok first exploded, for instance, the product development team rolled out a piece of functional nightstand decor dubbed the Book Nook reading valet, while the buying team sought repurposed book tulipspaper flowers in a paper vase, both created with upcycled books. [Photo: Uncommon Goods] John Berweiler, head of the sites buying team, says there are a few criteria for what makes a product ready for the site. True to form, it has to be uncommon (ideally something that can join the 40% of the site’s exclusive inventory) and it has to be useful, beautiful, or handmade, but preferably all three. As for the other variables, well, as a SCOTUS justice once famously said of pornography: You know it when you see it. Our customers want to win the gift competition, Berweiler says. For them, it’s the why behind the product. Does it make them smile? Does it make them reminisce about a moment or spark a feeling? That wow factor sets us apart from a frame they might buy at Pottery Barn. [Photo: Uncommon Goods] From idea to hit product Whenever a member of the buying team comes across a promising item they request a sample. Every Tuesday afternoon, the team gathers for a sample meeting that serves as an Americas Got Talent-like revue, in which each item competes for potential inclusion in the shop. If theres a winner, or multiple winners, a gauntlet of other considerations follows, spanning from price to exclusivity, and whether the maker has a backstory worth featuring on the site. [Photo: Uncommon Goods] Some products developed in-house come out of brainstorming sessions. Bolotsky himself is responsible for more than a few, including a line of interactive mugs with QR codes on them. Other Uncommon Goods items are collaborations between the buyers, product development, and various makers. Last year, for instance, the buying team was looking for new ideas for dining and drinking items, right as limoncello surged back into fashion, and landed on making dedicated limoncello glasses. The team reached out to potter Maggy Ames, who ended up producing an adorable set of ceramic tumblers with grippy thumb divots and elegant hand-painted lemons. Though the artist was initially skeptical, the limoncello cups blew up. They sold so well that she couldnt keep up with demand. Thats when the product development team stepped in to scale production on the cups, working closely with the original maker to ensure she was comfortable with how the new product turned out. Through a manufacturer in Thailand, the cups are now made on a larger scale, but can still be hand-paintedkeeping their artisan aura alive. Its a microcosm of how the company expanded from Bolotskys apartment to an operation with 144 year-round employees, all while elevating makers and maintaining the core promise. [Photo: Uncommon Goods] Gift-giving in the time of tariffs Although the buying team is already strategizing for Christmas 2026, first the company will have to get through this years holidays, which promise to be more challenging than usual. The presidents chaotic and aggressive approach to tariffs throughout 2025 has kept American retailers who work in the global marketplace in a bind. Bolotsky isnt especially worried, though. About half of the products Uncommon Goods sells are made domestically, he says, and the rest are spread throughout 10 countries, keeping the company less dependent on Chinese-made products than many of its competitors. For the imported products, Uncommon Goods has been negotiating with vendors to meet at least halfway on the pricing or margin hit the company is poised to take. In some cases, Uncommon Goods ended up sourcing products elsewhere; in others, it has taken selected price hikes. My biggest concern is actually that, because we sell discretionary products, and because there will likely be greater inflation across the board this holiday season, people may have less discretionary money to spend on gifts that we sell, Bolotsky says. If people do end up having less money to spend on gifts this year, they may indeed have to be more discerning about what they buy. Perhaps enough of them will gravitate toward a shop thats more discerning about what it sells.
Category:
E-Commerce
America is in an overstock and returns crisis. Every year 8.4 billion pounds of products are returned to online sellers, according to the National Retail Federation. The typical solution from retailers is to send the roughly 17% of their inventory made up of returns to a landfill, regardless of the condition of the products. It’s a problem that sellers have little incentive to solve. Since dumping product can be written off as the cost of doing business in profit and loss statements, companies don’t invest in a complex reverse supply chain or inspect items for potential resale value. But recommerce site Rebel just raised a $25 million series B round to fuel its work building a resale network for retailersand the software to power it. The funding round was led by Jay-Z’s MarcyPen Capital Partners, which, alongside Serena Williams’s Serena Ventures was part of Rebel’s $18 million Series A raise in 2024. Discount-retail veteran Emily Hosiewhose résumé includes time at Saks Off Fifth and TJ Maxxsays she launched the Toronto- and New York-based company to solve two problems while selling written-off products at a 40% to 70% discount. “The majority of returns are ending up in landfills and no retailers or brands want to talk about it because it’s not something to be proud about, she says. How does Rebel work? At Rebel’s 300,000-square-foot warehouse in Kannapolis, North Carolina, the company processes more than 70,000 unique products a weekenough inventory that its website adds new deals every 15 minutes. To process that volume of returns, Hosie built a new technology and logistics stack. Using AI, Rebel can detect, log, and tag the condition of each return, and determine the most efficient way to receive it from retailers and ship it to consumers. “Every return is a snowflake,” Hosie says, noting that all products require inspection to determine their condition. “[An e-commerce company] processing a return versus processing inventory in general is asking a heart surgeon to do brain surgery. It’s a totally different infrastructure needed, and for a lot of companies that’s just mission drift.” Rebel, which is B Corp certified, aims to expand its physical presence on the West Coast in 2026. The company developed an AI-powered smart-pricing algorithm that auto-adjusts item prices based on demand, condition, and inventory more than 10 times a day. On top of that, Rebels consumer-facing tool lets buyers check the real-time resale value of an item when theyre deciding whether to purchase it. Rebels business, which started processing items in the baby category with Newell Brands, Evenflo, Dorel, and others, has grown 2,640% in just three years. The site now also sells travel products and home goods (including mattresses), and is expanding to outdoor/sporting gear and eventually consumer electronics. Getting retail’s attention As complex as Rebel’s logistics are, for Hosie the biggest obstacle was getting retailers to buy into the productin part because in meetings with retail leaders, they balked at the premise of Rebel’s service. We would get meetings with the most senior people on leadership teams at global iconic brands and mass retailers,” Hosie says. “They would look at us and say, Congratulations on what you built, but we don’t have a returns problem. The company had a breakthrough early on when a large mass retailer going bankrupt decided to use Rebel to sell off its inventory. That gave us the business case to go back to other retailers, Hosie says. Unlike other retailers struggling with their supply chain as tariffs take hold, Rebel is immune because the products it deals with are already sold in the States. Rebel is also appealing to price-sensitive shoppers ahead of the holidays, at a time of layoffs and economic uncertainty. We’re the only company with the tech to be able to process these returns at scale,” Hosie says. “Why not be that one-stop destination for those who love deal hunting and buying open-box, never-used returns?
Category:
E-Commerce
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