The Brand Agent is the AI shopping agent we built into Opttab: a remote MCP server plus a shopping agent that lets AI assistants look up your products and complete the actions you allow, such as placing an order, through your own tools. You build it once and offer it on ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Gemini and your own website, subject to each platform's review.
Below, we walk through the eight-step Agent Setup path. The Brand Agent comes with Enterprise for brands, and Agency Scale or Agency Enterprise for agencies. It is separate from API and MCP access to your Opttab data, which starts at Starter.
Why we built the Brand Agent
Opttab began as an AI visibility tool, and ecommerce teams kept showing us its limit: a mention isn't enough when an assistant can also buy for the user. Our first three pillars, Discoverability, Visibility and Optimization, get you found and recommended. The fourth, Agentic Commerce, is where the assistant acts, and in our Agentic Journey OS the Brand Agent lets it act with your catalog, rules and checkout.
The orchestration canvas and the setup checklist
Switch to Agent mode (in-app, the Agent module) and you land on Orchestration. The canvas reads left to right: Connections, the apps and data the agent can reach; Actions, what it may do with them; Your Agent in the middle; and Channels, where shoppers reach it. For a configured agent, Orchestration also shows a live, private HTTPS /mcp endpoint scoped to the release's tools; a published one looks like mcp.opttab.com/yourbrand.
A new agent's canvas. Columns fill in as you connect tools, enable actions and add channels; the Agent Setup card tracks progress.
The Agent Setup card lists eight steps: check your website for an existing agent, connect a tool, enable actions, connect an outbound channel, create a distribution channel, pass the channel tests, receive your first agent call, and activate a journey. No custom development is needed to create the agent, and setup can take hours once connections are authorized.
Steps 1 and 2: check your site and connect a tool
Connections opens with a website check: we look for an agent endpoint your site already exposes, so you know before you build one.
Below it, Detected tools lists tools we found on your website, to connect in one step. Recommended lists tools your competitors' websites use. All is the searchable catalog. The Brand Agent integrates with more than 3,000 tools, such as Shopify, Klaviyo and Braze, and teams also connect support and shipping tools such as Zendesk and ShipStation. If your system isn't listed, Add Custom takes a custom endpoint.
The website check on top, then tools found on your site, tools your competitors use and the full catalog.
Credentials are stored encrypted in AWS Secrets Manager, with rate limits and abuse controls. Opttab Chat also supports more than 3,000 integrations, but Chat is your team's in-app assistant, on every plan and metered by chat credits. The Brand Agent is the one shoppers' assistants talk to.
Step 3: enable actions, sorted by risk
Actions is where you decide the agent's job, starting from a template or a custom action. We tag every template with a risk class and a journey stage, because "look up a product" and "commit an order" should never be treated alike.
Search products, Product details, Check availability, Delivery options, Order status and Log in are Read actions. Add to cart, Update cart, Register customer and Checkout handoff, which sends the shopper to your store's checkout with their cart, are Reversible writes. Confirm purchase is the one Consequential write: it commits an order after the customer approves exact terms.
Each template shows its risk class and stage. Templates become available once you connect a matching tool, such as Shopify.
You can switch off any action, or the whole agent, at any time. Human-in-the-loop approval is available for refunds, discounts and exceptions.
Step 4: outbound channels and journeys
An outbound channel is a tool your agent can send to, such as your messaging or CRM platform. Journeys are what the agent does on its own. Recover a cart waits, checks consent and hands the cart back to your store's own reminder; Welcome a customer follows a verified signup with a consented journey. You can pause or edit a journey while it is live. A third template, Buy a product, is marked Coming soon.
Smart Promotions turn captured intent into a bounded offer with a budget and approval. At launch, Journeys connects with Insider One, Braze, Klaviyo and Salesforce. Marketing sign-ups need explicit opt-in where consent is required, and collecting it is on your side.
Steps 5 and 6: create a distribution channel and pass the tests
Distribution starts from one idea: one agent, several ways to reach it. You pick a channel, scope its capabilities and validate a package.
There are five customer surfaces: ChatGPT (an MCP-powered app), Claude (a scoped remote MCP connector), Grok (a custom MCP connector users add by URL), your website (a shopping assistant added with one script tag) and Gemini. Gemini is tagged Eligibility required, with External approval required as its transaction mode, because it depends on eligibility and approval outside Opttab.
Each surface tracks endpoint health, capabilities and transaction mode. The banner on top separates preparing a channel from publication approval, and the note below says a healthy endpoint does not mean a public listing is approved.
That note matters most: private installs, platform review, published availability and actual calls are tracked separately. Public listings on ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and other platforms are subject to platform review and eligibility, and a platform can reject or remove a listing. Our Agent Distribution page covers each surface.
The Technical channels tab lets other software call your agent: WebMCP for structured browser tools, MCP Registry for discovery metadata, and Agent-to-Agent. WebMCP is in Preview and Agent-to-Agent is in Research. We make no promises on either yet.
Once a channel has an action, Playground lets you test the agent as it appears on ChatGPT, Claude, Grok or your website, compare them side by side, and shop as a signed-in customer before release. The Agent Readiness Checklist and Shopping Insights help too, flagging missing protocol files and products not ready for ACP or UCP.
Access rules: what the agent may never do
Agent Settings holds the guardrails. Access Rules shows an effective permission matrix: what the endpoint answers for an unknown caller and a verified one. Catalog search needs no authority, carts and purchases go through your store checkout, and order details need an email match. Refund or cancel is denied to both.
Refunds and cancellations are Not available to agents. Below sit the order ceiling, allowed markets and the pause switch.
The order ceiling caps a single checkout handoff; a larger cart goes to the store without a link. Pause new agent effects blocks journey activation and delivery and stops scheduled promotions from starting. Calls to the endpoint keep working, and pausing erases no orders, refunds, audit history or released channels. The Decision Simulator shows what the agent would answer under the saved rules, and every run goes into the Audit Log.
Steps 7 and 8: the first call and Agent Insights
Agent Insights fills in once an assistant calls your agent. Each call is logged with the request, actions, reasoning and outcome, such as a cart, an order or a hand-off. A journey ID links a start in ChatGPT, Claude or your on-site agent to an order or CRM event. Logs are kept for 12 months, then deleted or anonymized.
Tabs for what your agent did, plus a Merchant agent panel where you ask about it in plain language.
Try "Which tool failed most this week?" With calls coming in, the last step is activating a journey.
Your store, your payments
The agent must tell shoppers they are dealing with an AI system, in line with EU AI Act transparency rules, and that disclosure cannot be hidden. We publish listings under our own developer account, but your brand stays the seller and merchant of record. Opttab never receives, holds or transfers shopper payments; payment goes through your checkout or payment provider, and delivery, returns and service stay with you. If your subscription ends, we remove the listings we published and your store is unaffected.
Who can use the Brand Agent
For brands, the Brand Agent comes with Enterprise, priced on request. For agencies, it is included in Agency Scale at €699 a month or €6,999 a year, excluding VAT, and in Agency Enterprise, priced on request. Details are on our pricing page.
On one of those plans, Agent mode is in your account at app.opttab.com. For the wider platform, read about the new Opttab launch. To see it on your catalog, Book a demo or Start your agentic journey.
