The MACH Alliance has named the first cohort of tech providers who have earned its 2026 ‘Agent Ready’ accreditation, which verifies innovators with live and proven agentic technologies, helping retailers prioritise “proof over promise” in their AI investments.

The ‘Agent Ready’ accreditation sits on top of the existing MACH Certification, signalling to retailers and IT buyers that a software vendor, system integrator or infrastructure provider has demonstrated named agentic work. It also confirms a solution or service has been independently reviewed by the MACH Alliance for real-world interoperability.

“The message from our brand ambassadors was consistent: buyers want proof, not promises,” said Jason Cottrell, President of the MACH Alliance. “This year’s Agent Ready criteria prioritises real, demonstrable agent capabilities and we’ll continue raising the bar as the market matures.”

The move aims to offer retailers evaluating agentic technology a shortcut beyond vendor claims, creating a public directory of recognised companies, backed by independent review rather than marketing copy.

Over 30 technology providers were awarded the MACH Agent Ready Award, including Adyen, Bloomreach, commercetools, Deloitte Digital, Onestock, Stripe, Valtech and Voucherify. 

Other examples of Agent Ready members successfully deploying agents named as part of the programme include CMS platform, Contentstack, which already enables business users to build their own agents on Agent OS to interact directly with its solution, and Noibu, an e-commerce analytics platform which uses agents to flag commerce experience problems and write the fixes themselves.

The MACH Alliance said that the Agent Ready list will continue to grow throughout 2026 as more MACH Alliance members apply and complete the verification process, which is then renewed annually as the criteria evolve.