Lauren Livak Gilbert is the Executive Director of the Digital Shelf Institute, a community of more than 11,000 brands and retailers navigating eCommerce and the digital shelf. She leads research, education, and industry collaboration on emerging commerce trends. Lauren specializes in agentic commerce, product content, citations, measurement, and helping brands turn complex digital shifts into practical strategies that drive customer acquisition and growth.

Max Sinclair is the Founder and CEO of Azoma (formerly Ecomtent), an agentic commerce platform helping brands improve visibility and performance across AI-powered shopping. He leads company strategy, growth, and enterprise partnerships while advising brands on product discovery, content, and conversion across ChatGPT, Amazon Rufus, Walmart Sparky, and Google Gemini. Max also co-hosts The New Frontier: The Agentic Commerce & Answer Engine Optimization podcast.

In this episode…

Agentic commerce is becoming a priority for brands, but many teams are still defining how it fits into their eCommerce strategies. Rather than replacing the digital shelf, it expands how AI systems discover, evaluate, and recommend products. How can brands turn this shift into measurable growth?

Digital shelf strategist Lauren Livak Gilbert and agentic commerce entrepreneur Max Sinclair answer by organizing the challenge around five C's: completeness, context, citations, correctness, and customer acquisition. Their framework shows brands how to strengthen product data, answer detailed shopper questions, build trust through credible sources, and correct inaccurate information across AI platforms. Lauren recommends treating agentic commerce as an extension of existing digital shelf work while developing a deeper understanding of shopper needs. Max emphasizes monitoring the entire category, identifying the sources AI tools rely on, and connecting visibility efforts to conversion and incremental revenue. Together, their guidance offers a practical way to prepare internal teams, prioritize investments, and measure meaningful business impact.

In this episode of The Digital Deep Dive, Aaron Conant talks with Lauren Livak Gilbert, Executive Director of the Digital Shelf Institute, and Max Sinclair, Founder and CEO of Azoma, about decoding agentic commerce through the five C's. Lauren and Max show how brands can improve data completeness, add richer context, strengthen citations, ensure correctness, and drive customer acquisition. They also discuss AI shopping behavior, brand accuracy, and practical measurement.