Kibo: A unified, model-agnostic approach to agentic commerce For B2B and B2C

tl;dr

• Understand why unified data and one AI interface can outperform a fragmented collection of point agents.
• See how model-agnostic AI and “bring your own LLM” architecture reduce vendor lock-in and give commerce teams more control over cost and flexibility.
• Learn how Playbooks automate everyday commerce tasks while preserving human oversight, permissions and accountability.

Eric Rosado’s return to Kibo as Chief Product Officer comes at a pivotal moment for ecommerce technology. After previously serving as Kibo’s VP of Product and spending three years as CPO at Monetate, Eric returned to help shape Kibo’s next phase of product innovation, as AI accelerates software development and the way commerce teams operate.

The vendor market is evolving rapidly. AI is enabling companies to build faster but that creates new challenges: deciding what to build, keeping pace with constant model innovation and helping customers navigate a crowded market where vendors often promise similar capabilities.

Product teams must now design not only for customer experience, but also for “agent experience”, making their platforms easy for AI agents to understand and use.

That thinking is central to Kibo AI, Kibo Commerce’s newly available agentic layer. Rather than exposing customers to a growing collection of individual agents, Kibo AI brings nine specialised agents together behind one unified interface spanning commerce and order management.

Its unified data model and API-first architecture allow agents to work across catalogue, pricing, promotions, inventory, routing, fulfilment and orchestration without forcing users to understand the underlying complexity.

Kibo AI is also model agnostic. Through its “bring your own model” architecture, customers can use OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini or open-weight models according to their existing technology strategy, performance requirements and budget.

This flexibility helps avoid vendor lock-in and gives businesses greater control as model capabilities and token costs continue to change.

Our conversation also explores Playbooks: plain-language automations that run on triggers or schedules. They can monitor new products for missing content, flag fulfillment risks, generate reports and connect with external services such as translation engines or Slack.

It's important that we emphasise human oversight. AI can analyse, explain and prepare actions, but permissions, audit trails and approval steps remain in place, helping commerce teams automate repetitive work without surrendering control.

The Loyalty Playbook for Peak Trading

"Engagement in loyalty programmes is highest around BFCM—they drive the greatest share of revenue from existing customers precisely when brands are competing hardest for attention.”

tl;dr - why listen?

• Learn how to protect BFCM margins without depending on deeper discounts.
• Discover practical loyalty tactics for acquisition, retention and reactivation.
• Understand how omnichannel rewards can connect customer journeys across online and offline retail.

Black Friday Cyber Monday (BFCM) is no longer just a customer acquisition opportunity. For ecommerce and omnichannel retailers, peak trading is a critical moment to engage existing loyalty members, acquire valuable new customers and increase revenue without relying solely on blanket discounts.

In this episode, James Gurd speaks with Charlie Casey, CEO and founder of LoyaltyLion, about how retailers can get more from their loyalty programmes during peak trading.

They explore how loyalty members can become a major source of BFCM revenue, and how brands can use early access, VIP tiers and exclusive product launches to create urgency without unnecessarily sacrificing margin.

The discussion also looks at the shift away from generic discounts towards more relevant rewards, including experiences, charitable contributions, product access and incentives linked to customer behaviour.

The podcast explains practical ways to segment loyalty members based on spend, engagement, referrals and purchase frequency. Retailers can then tailor rewards more effectively, directing high-value customers towards premium experiences, encouraging at-risk customers to return and using loyalty to promote gateway products, high-margin items or excess stock.

Omnichannel loyalty is another key theme. Customers expect to be recognised wherever they shop, whether that’s a brand’s website, physical store, marketplace or retail partner. Receipt uploads, loyalty passes and connected customer data can help retailers create a consistent experience across these channels.

Churn prevention is discussed, including challenges, points expiry, reward drops and other tactics that encourage customers to re-engage before and during peak season.

Chapters:

• [00:30] Introduction: The BFCM loyalty playbook
• [03:35] Why loyalty matters during peak trading
• [05:00] Moving beyond acquisition and heavy discounting
• [08:35] Early access, exclusivity and VIP strategies
• [10:35] Personalised rewards versus blanket discounts
• [14:05] Acquiring new loyalty members before peak
• [16:40] Using loyalty to drive LTV and protect margins
• [18:20] Rewards that reinforce brand values
• [21:05] Segmenting loyalty members by value and engagement
• [23:45] Churn prevention and customer reactivation
• [26:20] Managing points expiry without frustrating customers
• [28:10] Building an omnichannel loyalty strategy
• [30:25] Rewarding customers across retail partners and channels
• [32:20] Loyalty passes, receipt uploads and AI-powered tools
• [35:40] Validating receipts and preventing loyalty fraud
• [39:35] Connecting loyalty across stores, marketplaces and resale

This week, we turn our attention once more to Centra's ecommerce platform and recent roadmap activity.

Martin Jensen, founder and Chief Innovation Officer at Centra, reveals how agentic AI is moving from “smart intern” to genuine digital colleague, and why the next competitive edge is no longer the code itself, but the tools, playbooks and guardrails built around it.

The discussion is framed by the concept of agent experience, whereby developers consider what an agent requires when planning new developments, not just what end users need.

The episode explains what this shift means for merchants, agencies and the vendors powering ecommerce. Martin explains why Centra is now designing around the agent experience first, how its agentic AI offering supports hundreds of real-world scenarios and why human teams will increasingly supervise agents across multiple systems rather than just inside one platform.

You’ll discover:

1. That whilst shopper behaviour is evolving, a bigger evolution is happening inside brands.
2. How Centra's agentic AI is taking on repeatable ecommerce tasks instead of operations teams.
3. The three layers of guardrails Centra uses to keep agents safe, useful and controlled.
4. Why agencies are becoming more embedded in strategy, not just building solutions.
5. How B2B ecommerce is changing through AI-powered translation, endless-aisle drop shipping and inline analytics.

Martin shares key innovations in Centra’s product roadmap, including a curated integration marketplace and customer-facing AI capabilities such as semantic search and next-generation recommendations.

The conversation also explores how Centra is expanding its ecosystem, focusing on reliable, battle-tested integrations across payments, CRM, ERP and customer data.

For ecommerce businesses, the opportunity is significant: smarter AI tools can help teams automate repetitive work & respond to customers faster, giving employees more time to focus on strategic decisions and relationships. But adoption depends on trust and clear human oversight.

Chapters:

[00:30] Introduction to Martin Jensen and Centra’s product strategy

[03:00] The AI revolution inside ecommerce brands

[03:55] Why writing code is no longer a competitive advantage

[06:50] Centra’s agentic AI strategy

[08:40] Why AI agents need purpose-built tools and MCP access

[13:30] Designing for agent experience instead of only user experience

[17:35] Guardrails: permissions, controls, and supervisory agents

[21:15] AI token costs, pricing, and competition

[27:20] Centra’s latest platform innovations

[30:10] AI opportunities and adoption challenges in B2B

[33:20] Centra’s integration ecosystem and app marketplace

[36:15] Centra’s criteria for technology partnerships

[40:30] Human handoffs and customer service guardrails