By Andrea Leigh
If you’ve ever searched Crest Toothpaste on Amazon and found yourself doom-scrolling through the 819 search results, you already know: Search-based shopping is broken.
The digital shelf has become cluttered, chaotic and, frankly, exhausting. As Scott Galloway once observed at Emerson Industry Day, “Choice is a tax.”
When shopping gets hard, shoppers find workarounds.
According to eMarketer, 46% of Generation Z and 35% of Millennials currently prefer social media (which offers a more curated and personalized experience) over Amazon or search engines for brand discovery.
What’s more, 61% of U.S. consumers have used Artificial Intelligence tools like ChatGPT or Gemini for online shopping assistance, according to Bloomreach. And Adobe Analytics observed a tenfold increase in online retailer traffic from AI sources over only a three-month period.
AI-assisted shopping offers the promise of efficiency (i.e., no more doom scrolling search results), TRUE personalization (the AI agent already knows I have sensitive gums) and iterative search (just show me the ones on sale).
The ideal end-state? AI agents using intelligent reasoning to select products on our behalf.
Don’t worry, AI shopping isn’t taking over … yet.
When I asked OpenAI’s “operator” agent to buy the lowest-priced Crest whitening toothpaste for me, it made many errors. First, it only chose Google shopping paid search results. Then it selected the smallest pack size, not taking into account price-per-ounce. When I directed it to Amazon, the site wouldn’t render, because Amazon seems to be blocking bot traffic.
However, given the lightning speed at which this technology is developing, we will be there … and soon.
Amazon embraces AI
In fact, Amazon has already made significant changes to embrace AI shopping. They’ve launched Rufus, the digital shopping assistant that scrapes both on-site and off-site data to answer common questions about products. They’ve revamped their search engine to the new Cosmo search, a contextual search engine that incorporates the who/what/when/where/why of products, including scanning images, reviews and off-site data.
The new keys to success
We spent the last 20 years getting our e-commerce teams set up for success. We’ve undergone digital transformations in our companies. We’ve hired and fired staff. We’ve exhaustively trained team members. We’ve created — and in some cases, disbanded — centers of excellence in digital commerce. We’ve bought tools, licensed software, and created our own tools to measure and optimize our e-commerce businesses.
AI upends existing success formulas
You didn’t expect digital to be set-it-and-forget-it, did you? If you did, you’re in for a surprise. The shift to AI commerce will upend nearly every success formula that retailers and brands have relied on for the past two decades.
Here are five new truths about how AI is disrupting the shopper journey, and what forward-thinking leaders (like you) need to do about it.
The Five New Truths
1. Forget what you know about digital product discovery.
Remember the old stat about how most shoppers discover products online via search? Well, here’s a replacement stat that should wake up your digital team: Search volume is expected to drop by 25% within the next year as consumers shift to using tools like ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) to discover products (Gartner).
Why the shift? Because as we covered earlier with Crest Toothpaste, search is noisy, biased and overwhelming. AI agents and assistants like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Amazon’s Rufus are making product discovery simpler, faster and way more personalized.
The TL;DR:
• Brands need to start measuring and influencing your position in GenAI tools. Sites like Reddit, Wikipedia and your DTC site might be critical inputs. Also, it’s gonna be harder to “buy” visibility via retail media — authentic content (such as the above) will also be critical drivers.
• Retailers need to reimagine the digital shelf entirely and find ways to compete with GenAI tools by incorporating AI into your search and shopping experience (or risk giving up the direct relationship with the shopper … and retail media dollars).
2. Personalization: Speaking to an Audience of One
Personalization has been the buzzword of late. However, most personalization has been used to describe segmentation, or relevance: “You bought Crest Whitening Toothpaste, so maybe you’ll like Crest White Strips too.”
Truly effective personalization can only happen with memory — when merchandising or advertising remembers our preferences, such as with GenAI. These systems can remember, converse, adapt and recommend in real time. They’re not just targeting “people like you” — they’re targeting you.
Shoppers are pulling for these experiences, too. In a recent study, 71% of consumers said they want GenAI integrated into their shopping experiences.
The TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read): Shopper expectations for “personalization” are rising fast — and brands and retailers need to deliver.
3. Your content is your new packaging.
In an AI-first world, what your content says about you matters more than ever. Because it’s not just being viewed — it’s being scraped, summarized and served to shoppers by AI.
Here’s what matters now:
• A picture is worth 1,000 words: Images that show the product clearly, in use, from multiple angles.
• User-generated content still reigns: reviews that are plentiful, recent and answer real questions. Smart brands are using AI to improve product detail pages automatically.
• Your DTC site is suddenly relevant again. Why? Because AI tools crawl brand-owned sites for high-quality information.
The TL;DR: If your product pages are thin, outdated or generic — or worse, your images don’t show the product in use (with people using it), you’re already losing to brands that have done the work.
4. Retail media has an AI problem (and opportunity).
If shoppers stop searching, what happens to retail media search ads? Retail media networks (RMNs) have built billion-dollar businesses on the back of traditional search behavior. But if impressions drop and traffic shifts to AI tools, those models are going to need an upgrade — fast.
The opportunity? RMNs could evolve into AI-powered influence platforms. Think selling visibility in GenAI platforms (“sponsored prompts”), charging brands for high-quality content placement (versus ad units) and developing new metrics around AI recommendation influence (versus clicks).
The TL;DR: Watch this space. It’s going to get disrupted and weird (and maybe expensive).
5. Speed and agility are your new competitive edge.
Hope you weren’t getting complacent in your digital commerce business. If you were, it’s time to wake up. AI doesn’t just change what you need to do — it changes how fast you need to do it.
Emerging brands and retailers are already using AI to:
• Generate content in minutes (versus weeks) and optimize listings across multiple AI platforms instantly.
• Analyze reviews and shopper feedback at scale (and automatically update content accordingly).
Legacy brands, with their red tape and complex approval processes, are going to struggle to keep up. That’s not a knock — it’s a reality.
The TL;DR: Speed wins. Bureaucracy loses. Find ways to move faster.
What this means for you …
Brands and retailers, this is your moment to ask the big questions:
• Are our products discoverable in an AI-first world?
• Is our content ready for a world where AI summarizes it for shoppers?
• Are we measuring the right things?
• Do we have the right talent, tech and test-and-learn culture to adapt?
One thing is clear: The way shoppers buy is changing fast. Are you ready?
Andrea Leigh is founder and chief executive officer of the Allume Group.
