Previously 12 months, ecommerce giants including Amazon and Walmart have pushed forward with artificial intelligence efforts, trying latest AI-powered shopping assistants. Each launch has accompanied guarantees to rework the web shopping experience. These digital tools are sometimes designed to streamline product discovery, boost shopper engagement and ultimately increase sales. But are they delivering the expected results?
Generative AI is reshaping shopper expectations, particularly in pre-purchase decision-making. 72% of consumers now expect their online shopping experiences to evolve with the adoption of gen AI, based on survey leads to a 2024 report released by the enterprise AI platform Coveo. Furthermore, the identical survey found 31% expect to make use of a virtual assistant to assist them select the best products.
Online retailers and tech experts told Digital Commerce 360 that AI shopping assistants are making shopping more personalized and gaining useful feedback from customers. Still, their overall effectiveness stays an open query. The technology continues to be in its early days. Meanwhile, many retailers are waiting on more detailed data to raised understand its impact on ecommerce.
“I feel like ChatGPT, the adoption curve will probably be about two years,” said Joe Monastiero, founder and CEO of visualAI retail solutions, a software company that builds AI solutions for ecommerce.
Aspirations for AI shopping assistants
Greater than 50 corporations — including tech providers, established retailers and startups — are currently developing AI shopping assistants, based on research from the analytics and consulting company GlobalData. The tools assist consumers in navigating online stores. Associated tasks include finding products, answering questions and even handling tasks akin to processing orders and tracking returns.
Thomas Randall, director of AI market research at Info-Tech Research Group, highlighted two key advantages for retailers. He cited increased basket sizes and higher online customer experiences.
“Many providers we’ve briefed on this software space have demonstrated increases in customer basket sizes and better margins from cross-selling,” Randall told Digital Commerce 360 via email.
As an illustration, 35up, a platform that optimizes product pairings for merchants, reported an 11% increase in basket size and a 40% rise in cross-selling margins, he noted.
“Furthermore, customers receive a personalised shopping experience, from relevant product recommendations to asking unstructured inquiries to an NLP [natural language processing] chatbot who can appropriately respond in real-time, 24/7,” Randall added.
Monastiero shared that hyper-personalized shopping assistants, akin to the conversational agent developed by his company, can keep shoppers engaged longer. That engagement would ideally drive more interaction and potentially boost conversion rates. Visual search tools, which permit shoppers to go looking using images as a substitute of text, can extend session durations by as much as 30% and improve click-through rates by 15%-25%, based on data tracked by visualAI.
Amazon’s Rufus launch
In 2024, Amazon launched its AI-powered shopping assistant, Rufus. Now available to all U.S. customers, Rufus might help shoppers make higher purchasing decisions by answering questions directly inside the Amazon Shopping app, based on the corporate. Amazon credited Rufus with helping hundreds of thousands of shoppers during its 2024 Prime Day event in July.
