For the past decade, customer journey design has assumed one thing: the customer is human. A real person. Messy. Emotional. Overloaded. Someone who needs clarity, reassurance, and a sense of progress to keep moving forward. But in 2026, that assumption no longer holds. AI agents are starting to influence how people search, compare, choose, and buy. They filter results, generate shortlists, book services, and soon may even negotiate on our behalf. While much of AI usage is still task-based, it marks a critical shift. Once AI becomes part of how information is gathered, filtered, and prioritized, it begins to shape the decisions that follow. That means the customer journey is no longer a single track. It is now a dual journey, one for the person and one for the agent. This article does not promise all the answers. The landscape is changing fast. What it can do is explore why this shift matters, what dual journeys look like, and how marketers can start designing for both. The customer is no longer the only decision-maker When an AI agent filters 200 options down to just three, your customer is only seeing the surface of that decision. Visibility is being won or lost long before the person is even aware of it. Agents are not just another channel. They are becoming gatekeepers in the decision-making process. That means your journey now has two layers: The human journey. The agent journey. They overlap, but they work in very different ways. Humans and agents…