ZETA Signs Strategic Partnership Agreement with Global Payment Giant Checkout.com

ZETA Inc. (Headquarters: Setagaya-ku, Tokyo; hereinafter ZETA), which provides the CX-enhancing generative AI solution 'ZETA CX Series' and supports the improvement of customer experience value, announces that it has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Checkout.com (Headquarters: London, UK; Founder & CEO: Guillaume Pousaz), a company with extensive experience in providing global digital payment platforms, with a view to business development in the agentic commerce domain.

Through this partnership, ZETA will comprehensively support the creation of new AI-powered purchasing paths and the improvement of CX on e-commerce sites for the upcoming era of agentic commerce.

■ Background: Cross-Search via 'Agentic Search' Accelerating Globally and New E-Commerce Experiences

In recent years, the spread of generative AI services such as ChatGPT and Gemini has brought about a major transformation in user purchasing behavior. Global attention is increasingly focused on 'Agentic Commerce,' where AI agents understand user intent and assist with product recommendations, comparisons, and connections to purchase paths.

Overseas, major e-commerce platforms like Shopify and various aggregators are rapidly strengthening this trend. They are building environments where generative AI applications can directly call up information from the e-commerce sites of service-adopting companies, enabling cross-store information display and comparison. An example of this is the product search app 'Klarna Shopping Search,' released on May 20 by the Swedish unicorn company Klarna, which cross-displays product data from multiple merchants within ChatGPT. (Note 1)

In this way, the mechanism where users describe the product they are looking for in a conversation with an AI agent, and the prices and stock status of products handled by multiple shops are searched and displayed across the board, is the core future use case for agentic commerce. It can be said that AI is already being put to practical use in product search and customer acquisition for shops in Europe and the US.

In this new trend, for AI agents to search and retrieve the latest and most accurate product information from each shop, ZETA's high-end, AI-compatible search engine will become a crucial infrastructure for e-commerce businesses to enhance their competitiveness in the age of agentic commerce.

■ Aim of this Partnership: Further Strengthening Initiatives in 'Agentic Commerce'

ZETA has been promoting the provision of AI-compatible solutions such as the generative AI integration platform 'ZETA LINK for AI,' the generative AI search optimization service 'ZETA GEO,' and the search-linked AI chat 'ZETA TALK,' as well as the utilization of UGC through the review, word-of-mouth, and Q&A engine 'ZETA VOICE.' In addition to these, through business alliances with Neo Japan Inc. and LIVEX AI Inc. (Note 2) and a business alliance with Channel Corporation Inc. (Note 3), ZETA is developing CX improvement and data utilization with an eye on the agentic commerce era. Going forward, ZETA also plans to develop cross-search services in generative AI, similar to the one launched by Klarna mentioned above, utilizing its own search query, word-of-mouth, and Q&A data.

The partnership with Checkout.com this time is based on the belief that collaboration with payment services is essential for users to enjoy shopping more safely and comfortably in this series of initiatives in the agentic commerce domain. Through collaboration with Checkout.com, which has extensive global experience, ZETA will capture the flow from AI-driven product discovery to purchase, which is expected to expand in the future, and promote initiatives aimed at enhancing the customer experience through data utilization.

[About Checkout.com]

Checkout.com provides payment services to thousands of companies that power the digital economy. Its digital payment network supports over 145 currencies and processes tens of billions of transactions annually worldwide.

With flexible and scalable technology, it helps improve payment success rates, reduce processing costs, and prevent fraud, turning payments into a driver of profitability for businesses. Headquartered in London with offices in 19 locations worldwide, Checkout.com works with top global companies such as Sony, Netflix, Uber, Spotify, Alibaba, Docusign, Wise, Sainsbury's, and the Financial Times.

For more details, please visit www.checkout.com/ja-jp/ (Japanese site).

■ Future Outlook

Going forward, ZETA will comprehensively address product discovery starting from generative AI and AI agents, traffic to e-commerce sites, UGC utilization such as search, reviews, Q&A, and hashtags, retail media advertising, and optimization of purchasing paths, supporting e-commerce businesses in improving CX and maximizing business revenue.

Furthermore, while developing the partnership with Checkout.com, ZETA will also consider deeper service integrations and joint initiatives in the future, promoting efforts in the agentic commerce domain based on advanced domestic and international case studies.

Details of specific services and implementation cases realized through this partnership will be announced via press releases as they become available.

Leveraging its strengths in AI-powered data analysis, ZETA will continue to provide valuable services to users and e-commerce site operators.