The news: 2025 was a significant year for AI’s foray into retail, ecommerce platforms, and the shopper journey. Here’s a look back on some notable product launches, emerging challenges, and changes in consumer behavior.

Notable launches: Agentic became a hot trend for AI firms, along with integrations that transform chatbots into one-stop product discovery and checkout centers.

• Amazon. Agentic abilities for its Rufus AI shopping assistant now include an “Auto Buy” button that authorizes the chatbot to complete purchases on users’ behalf when they reach a target price or discount level.
• OpenAI. A new Instant Checkout feature turned its platform into an end-to-end shopping experience rather than a simple guide for products that routes shoppers to external platforms.
• Perplexity. Its agentic shopping tool spots intent and pulls on users’ search history to personalize recommendations and responses.

How consumers are using AI to shop: 20% of global orders during Cyber Week were influenced by AI and agents, per Salesforce—a stat that at face value appears to show consumer adoption of AI shopping tools is well on its way to becoming mainstream. However, the reality is considerably more nuanced.

• While Adobe pointed to a 670% increase in AI traffic to US sites in the first month of the holiday season, it also noted that the number of consumers using AI chatbots to shop “remains modest.”
• More shoppers are using retailers’ embedded features—like Amazon’s Rufus and Walmart’s Sparky—than AI platforms like Perplexity or ChatGPT, making it difficult to gauge how effective these tools are at driving sales.
• We expect AI platforms to account for just 1.5% of total retail ecommerce sales in 2026, or $20.9 billion in spending. While still a small number, that’s nearly quadruple 2025’s figures.

The problem: Some ecommerce platforms, including Shopify and Amazon, are starting to resist activity from external AI agents inside their ecosystems. Even Walmart, which has so far taken a more collaborative approach, recently added guidelines to its website that prevent agents from taking users to checkout pages or placing orders, per The Information.

If tools like Perplexity’s Comet take over product discovery and purchasing workflows, it could undermine retailers’ search and ad systems. Brands that depend on sponsored placements, display ads, and keyword-based ads could lose insights into shopper behavior and have less direct exposure to high-intent, ready-to-buy consumers. That loss of transparency would complicate attribution and increase reliance on first-party data.

What brands should do: AI is reshaping the product discovery journey as consumers increasingly rely on recommendations and product suggestions rather than organically finding new brands and items.

This boosts the importance of generative engine optimization (GEO) strategies, which includes adding clear metadata on products—like specs and pricing—indexable review sections, and full-sentence item descriptions that can be included in chatbot outputs.