Companies preparing for how AI may shift habits for investors, shoppers

Falling Canadian dollar coins or loonies are pictured in North Vancouver, B.C. Wednesday, May 29, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

TORONTO — Canadian brands are preparing for a world in which individuals lean increasingly hard on technology to help them make purchases or bank.

“Six months from now, that human customer is going to have their own agents. Then the agent is going to be shopping on their behalf or investing on their behalf,” said BMO Financial Group’s chief artificial intelligence and quantum officer Kristin Milchanowski on Thursday on stage at AI conference All In.

Agents are pieces of autonomous software that can carry out duties on behalf of a user.

They are increasingly being adopted across tech-savvy organizations and populations because they can help reduce the time spent on tedious tasks.

Their recent jump in adoption has consumer-facing companies retooling how they approach some parts of their business, Milchanowski indicated.

“Think about six months from now, how do we market not just to the client — the human client — but how do we market to their agents?” she said

“All of that world is coming to the theatre near you soon and it’s quite exciting.”

Her comments came at the All In conference, one of the 600 events taking place during Toronto Tech Week, which will wrap Friday evening.

She was joined on stage by members of Loblaw Companies Ltd. and Canadian Tire Corp.’s senior ranks.

As AI has advanced, Canadian Tire’s vice-president of AI activation and process engineering Anthony Wolf said he’s become “hyper-aware of the fact that where customers start their journey, where they shop, is constantly evolving.”

Some people no longer make their purchases at the mall or their favourite brand’s website and instead start their shopping through AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Claude.

Wolf said that has left brands thinking a lot about how they become relevant in an “AI-mediated” world.

“We’re trusted and our customers know we’re trusted, but does ChatGPT know?” he asked rhetorically.

“So there’s a whole other world of discussion about how we play within a much bigger ecosystem, which is again, exciting and scary at the same time.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2026.

Companies in this story: (TSX:BMO, CTC.A)

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press