BlogPerspective
AI in Promotional Products: Who Wins When Buyers Order Through AI?
Kevin Walsh says AI will reward the fast and expose the slow. He is right. But AI is also changing who places the order, and that decides even more.
AI in the promotional products industry does two things. It makes reps faster at quoting, mockups and service, and it turns AI assistants into a new way to buy. The winners are companies whose products, prices and order status are readable by machines, not locked in PDFs and inboxes. For many orders, on-demand production with live pricing removes the quote altogether, so a person or an AI agent can order directly.
Key takeaways:
- Kevin Walsh is right: AI rewards fast, organized merch companies and exposes slow, manual ones.
- The bigger shift is not reps using AI, but buyers ordering through AI assistants.
- An AI agent can only shortlist suppliers whose products, prices, lead times and order status it can read as data.
- No company can fix this alone, because one decorated order depends on suppliers, decorators and distributors together.
- On-demand production turns many quotes into live prices, which is the kind of order an AI agent can complete.
- Shared industry infrastructure lets small distributors compete; the real risk is a catalog that only exists in PDFs and inboxes.
What did Kevin Walsh argue about AI in the merch industry?
Kevin Walsh, president of Showdown Displays and former PPAI board chair, argues that AI will amplify well-run suppliers and distributors and expose slow, manual ones.
In his PPAI column, "AI Is Coming For The Merch Industry… Here's Who Wins", he names five areas where AI helps: faster quotes, better mockups, proactive customer service, smarter prospecting and shared team knowledge. His key warning is that AI on a broken process only produces faster confusion. Clean data, clear workflows and pricing discipline come first.
We agree with all of it. Speed decides deals, visuals sell, and service should be proactive. But his column shows AI as a better tool in the hands of the people we already have. There is a second half to the story.
What changes when the buyer orders through AI?
The question shifts from "who answers fastest?" to "whose catalog can the AI see, understand and order from?"
Imagine an office manager who asks ChatGPT or Claude: "Find me 150 embroidered quarter-zips with our logo, delivered before our sales kickoff on March 3." The assistant does not read a rep's email signature. It looks for sources it can query: product, decoration method, price, production time and stock. Then it compares them.
A PDF catalog is invisible to an AI agent. So is a price list on a rep's laptop. Protocols like MCP (Model Context Protocol) let AI assistants connect to live systems in a structured way, and that turns AI from a sales tool into a sales channel.
Being visible is only the first step. An agent also needs to complete the order and follow it. That means orders that can start from any storefront or AI connection, and status updates that flow back automatically: accepted, in production, shipped with tracking. Without that loop, the AI hands the work back to a person and the speed advantage disappears.
Why is clean product data an industry problem, not a company problem?
Because one promotional order depends on several companies, and an AI agent stops at the weakest link in that chain.
A single decorated order needs the supplier's product data, the decorator's pricing and setup fees, live inventory, production time, shipping and order status. A distributor can be perfectly organized and still depend on five partners who send PDFs and emails. Kevin is right that well-run companies gain most from AI. But in our industry, the broken process often sits between companies.
That is why the real question is whether we have shared, machine-readable connections between suppliers, decorators and distributors. Retail solved this with product feeds and marketplaces. Promo is harder because of the decoration layer, which makes it matter more.
AI as a sales tool vs AI as a buying channel
| AI as a sales tool | AI as a buying channel | |
|---|---|---|
| Who uses the AI | The distributor's rep | The buyer, or the buyer's AI assistant |
| What it speeds up | Quotes, mockups, follow-ups | The whole order, from search to checkout |
| What it needs | Good internal data and tools | Live, machine-readable product, price and status |
| Where it breaks | Messy internal processes | Any partner in the chain that is not connected |
| Who benefits most | Well-run companies | Connected companies, of any size |
The goal for the industry is simple to say and hard to build: product, price, production and status as data, not documents.
Does AI end the 24-hour quote?
For many orders, yes, and on-demand production goes one step further by replacing the quote with a live price.
We quote because the price depends on things nobody knows upfront: minimums, stock, decoration setup and bulk freight. AI can make a quote faster, but it cannot remove that uncertainty. On-demand production can. With no minimum order and no inventory, each item is produced when it is ordered, so the price can be calculated instead of negotiated.
Large custom programs will still need a person and a quote. But company stores, team stores, event merch and reorders are moving fast to "see it, price it, order it", and that is exactly the kind of order an AI agent can complete. Our guide to on-demand vs bulk ordering shows which orders fit which model.
Who wins when AI comes for the merch industry?
The companies that are connected, not only the companies that are big.
If every company must build its own clean data, integrations and AI tools, the largest players win, because they have the budget and the IT team. If that foundation is shared infrastructure, a three-person distributor can plug into the same live catalog, pricing and order tracking as a top-40 firm.
The winners:
- Distributors who own the relationship and let a platform carry the transactions. They know the client, the brand and the moment. AI removes the admin around that, not the value.
- Suppliers and decorators who are machine-readable. If an agent cannot find your product, price and lead time, you are not on the shortlist.
- Companies that connect instead of rebuild. The industry does not need a thousand separate AI projects. It needs common rails.
The companies at risk are not the small ones. They are the ones, of any size, whose products and prices only exist in PDFs, inboxes and people's heads.
How can distributors and suppliers prepare for AI buyers?
Pick one practical test, measure it, and expand, as Kevin suggests. Here are three tests that follow from the argument above.
- Test your own visibility. Ask ChatGPT or Claude to find a product you sell, with decoration and a delivery date. Note what it finds, and what it cannot find.
- Move one product line to live pricing. Pick something you reorder often, like team apparel or employee merch, and make it orderable without a quote.
- Ask your partners one question: "Can your system send me product, price and order status as data?" Their answer shows how ready your supply chain is for agents.
Related reading
- On-demand vs bulk: which fits which order
- Self-service swag ordering for employees
- Setting up an internal company store, step by step
Sources
- Kevin Walsh, "AI Is Coming For The Merch Industry… Here's Who Wins", PPAI Media, September 14, 2026
Frequently asked questions
Will AI replace promotional product distributors?
No. AI replaces repetitive work like quoting, order entry and status questions, not the client relationship. Distributors who know their client's brand, budget and timing become more valuable when the admin around them is automated.
What is MCP (Model Context Protocol)?
MCP is an open standard that lets AI assistants such as Claude connect to live business systems in a structured way. For merch, it means an AI assistant can look up real products, prices and order status instead of guessing from web pages.
Can an AI agent order promotional products today?
Yes, where the catalog is connected. Platforms that expose products, live prices and order status to AI assistants already let distributors work from chat and accept orders from AI connections. Products with live pricing and no minimum order are the easiest for an agent to order.
Does on-demand production replace bulk orders?
Not completely. Large custom programs still suit bulk production and a quote. On-demand fits company stores, team stores, events, reorders and any order where quantities and sizes are uncertain.
Why does on-demand matter for AI ordering?
On-demand production has no minimum order and no inventory, so the price of a single item can be calculated upfront. An AI agent can act on a fixed price; it cannot negotiate a quote.
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