From
Passive Scrolling
To Active Shopping
Stash
Client
Stash
Role
UX Design
Strategy
Instagram Shopping puts products in front of the right consumers but most users drop off without buying. The gap is usually a simple question that goes unanswered. Exploring Instagram Business Agent that gives shoppers the information they need right inside the app and at the moment they are deciding.
Discovery creates interest, unanswered questions creates doubts
Shopping on social platforms is still fundamentally passive. You scroll, you tap, you leave. The IG Business Agent challenges that pattern: asking what it would look like if the ad itself can advocate for you, surface the right answer at the right moment and make purchase feel inevitable rather than effortful.
Designing for both sides of the shopping experience
The challenge was to design for two sides of the shopping experience: businesses that want to connect with customers and shoppers who want to make confident decisions.
For businesses, the opportunity is to use AI to increase their output and deliver more personalized experiences without having to manually answer every customer question.
For shoppers, the goal is different: get useful, trustworthy information without having to leave Instagram or interrupt the flow of discovery.
Because Instagram is a global platform, the experience also needed to work across different people, shopping behaviors, and expectations. The agent needed to feel helpful and relevant—not like a one-size-fits-all sales tool.
We identified natural moments within the Instagram shopping journey where contextual prompts could surface useful information. When a shopper taps a prompt beneath an ad, they’re taken to an in-app product page while a bottom sheet surfaces information related to what they were curious about.
Rather than creating another open-ended conversation, we focused the experience around useful information that helps people make decisions. The agent's answers are grounded in information from the business's website, giving shoppers a more reliable source of product information without requiring them to leave Instagram.
An ad can do more than create interest. It can help turn interest into confidence.
The Business Agent points toward a different model for social commerce—one where shopping isn't simply scroll, tap, leave, but a more continuous journey between discovery, curiosity, and decision-making.
For businesses, AI can help scale personalized support. For shoppers, it can remove the friction of finding answers at the moment they need them.
