The investment will help support Azoma’s product development, with the company looking to focus on analysis of AI shopping assistant channels.

As part of the investment, Dunnhumby will be able to use Azoma to support its retailer clients with Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) and the Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), as well as with shopping agents like ChatGPT, Gemini and Alexa.

Azoma’s digital twin technology, which simulates AI shopper personas, is also expected to become available to Dunnhumby’s clients in due course.

Leo Nagdas, who heads Dunnhumby Ventures, has joined Azoma as adviser to the board as part of the investment. Nagdas founded Dunnhumby’s Retail Innovation Network.

Azoma is based in London and Toronto and focuses on helping brands navigate AI search.

Nagdas said: “AI shopping assistants are rewriting the path to purchase, and today retailers and consumer packaged goods have no reliable way to connect what an agent recommends to a sale.

“Backing companies like Azoma is how we bring emerging technology to our clients as consumer behaviours and retail ecosystems keep changing.”

Max Sinclair, chief executive and co-founder at Azoma, added that “agentic commerce is the next frontier”, and that the investment would “help us demonstrate to the world’s largest retailers and consumer brands the tangible value of agent-driven recommendations”.