The robots are taking over — your local shopping district.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming retail and e-commerce, powering everything from personalized product recommendations and shopping assistants to demand forecasting, dynamic pricing and autonomous checkout features. What was once an emerging technology is quickly becoming a standard part of retail operations: Nearly 90 percent of retail and consumer packaged goods companies are now actively using or piloting generative AI, according to 2026 industry research. Meanwhile, Nvidia’s latest State of AI in Retail survey found that 89 percent of retailers using AI reported increased revenue and 95 percent reported lower operating costs.
As retailers race to improve customer experiences and streamline operations, AI companies are rolling out a new wave of tools designed to automate even more of the shopping journey.
How Does AI in Retail Work?
AI enhances experiences for both customers and businesses, especially in the areas of retail and e-commerce. By collecting gobs of consumer data and feeding them into machine learning algorithms, retailers are able to spin up sophisticated, AI-powered personalization, recommendation and automation features, all of which have become commonplace throughout the shopping experience. These features simultaneously speed up operations and improve customer interactions, which increase revenue and resources for companies.
What Does AI in Retail Look Like?
Technology like chatbots — the non-human customer service beings trained to engage in human-like exchanges online — are just the start of AI in retail.
Well-established AI voice recognition programs like Amazon’s Alexa are being integrated with other devices like Amazon’s Fire TV. AI algorithms help companies analyze massive amounts of data culled from consumers’ online behavior to provide “predictive sales” insights that are used in part to make sure warehouses are strategically well-stocked.
Those warehouses, by the way, might use robots for sorting, packaging and other manual tasks so human workers can focus on other aspects of the business. Then there are recommendation engines that analyze past searches to suggest related products and services, AI-powered visual recognition programs that help prevent counterfeiting and AI copywriters that churn out SEO content for websites.
One of the newer forms of AI in retail involves agentic solutions. Using individual AI agents, chatbots and web browsers can find and purchase products autonomously based on user intent. Although it is an exciting new form of e-commerce, its use remains limited to a few platforms and is already coming under legal scrutiny from the largest players in the industry.
Check out these ways in which artificial intelligence is reinvigorating retail and e-commerce.
Examples of AI in Retail and E-Commerce
Amazon’s Alexa for Shopping Assistant: Amazon’s Alexa for Shopping (formerly Rufus) platform is a generative AI shopping assistant integrated into Amazon’s e-commerce site and mobile app. The tool helps customers discover products through conversational interactions, answer product-specific questions and compare similar items. Trained on Amazon’s product catalog, customer reviews and product detail pages, Alexa for Shopping enables personalized shopping experiences and post-purchase support.
Alibaba’s Shopping Chatbots: Alibaba is one of the world’s largest e-commerce platforms, operating major B2B, C2C and B2C marketplaces. The company uses AI extensively to enhance customer experiences and merchant capabilities across its ecosystem. It also deploys AI agents and chatbots to automate customer service, personalized product recommendations and merchant tools.
eBay’s Magical Listing Tool: eBay’s Magical Listing tool enables vendors to create product listings by uploading a product image, which the generative engine then analyzes to automatically suggest titles, descriptions, categories and item specifics. The company is also continuing to expand this tool’s capabilities, including bulk listing functionality and integration with guided, task-focused workflows designed to simplify the selling experience.
OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol: OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol recommends products related to users’ ChatGPT searches when it detects shopping intent. Co-developed with Stripe, the feature also enables instant checkout without navigating to the seller’s website. It currently works with partner retailers such as Etsy, Shopify, PayPal and Walmart. At present, it only supports single-item purchases, though its partnership with Walmart may eventually allow multi-item transactions.
Rokt’s Brain and Network Platforms: Rokt uses artificial intelligence to deliver personalized offers and products at checkout, the critical moment when customers are most likely to make additional purchases. The company’s Rokt Brain AI platform processes billions of transactions in real time, analyzing customer data to determine the most relevant next action during the transaction moment. Its global network connects retailers, brands and customers to surface relevant products and offers at scale, helping merchants increase revenue.
Thrive Market’s Customer Engagement AI Agent: Thrive Market is a membership-based online grocery retailer that uses AI for member support and personalization. New members complete a quiz whose responses inform product recommendations. Meanwhile, the company’s AI agent, Olive, handles a wide range of member interactions across chat and other channels. ThriveMarket is also expanding into product discovery and onboarding, positioning conversational AI as the primary entry point for member interactions to deliver personalized shopping experiences tied to their individual health goals.
InVia’s Autonomous Picker Robots: inVia Robotics operates a subscription-based warehouse automation platform, combining AI-powered software and autonomous mobile robots to optimize e-commerce and supply chain fulfillment. The company’s patented Goods-to-Person technology orchestrates warehouse workflows through its AI warehouse software and inVia Picker robots, enabling clients to achieve productivity gains while reducing labor costs.
ClickMint’s Experimentation Solutions: ClickMint helps e-commerce brands leverage AI to better understand and shape the shopper journey. The platform identifies site issues causing customer drop-off and tests targeted optimizations, delivering real-time performance analysis. Through AI-powered experimentation, ClickMint enables brands to understand and shape customer behavior, reducing friction and improving conversion rates.
Clarifai’s Content Classification Engine: Clarifai classifies images, videos, audio and text while enabling content moderation. In e-commerce specifically, the platform’s AI classification system powers product recommendations, visual search capabilities and automated data labeling to enhance both onsite and offsite SEO. Overall, Clarifai helps retailers and brands streamline AI workflows for product discovery and inventory management at scale.
Mirakl’s Target2Sell Platform: Mirakl’s software solutions for retail and B2B companies include Mirakl Target2Sell, which uses AI to tailor shoppers’ product recommendations. The company says this offering is designed to help businesses increase revenue and conversions. It also generates insights based on factors like customer behavior, product ratings and customer reviews that users can analyze to understand and optimize their digital marketplace’s performance.
Cox Enterprises’ Esntial Tool: Cox Enterprises is a diversified corporation operating in the media, automotive and telecommunications sectors, with key subsidiaries including Cox Communications and Cox Automotive. As a tech company, Cox Automotive owns Autotrader.com and Dealer.com, as well as the iconic Kelley Blue Book brand. The company uses artificial intelligence and machine learning in its Esntial tool, a web-based platform that aims to “optimize the sales process” by estimating car loan payments and helping assess borrower risk factors so customers can transact immediately online.
Commerce’s Agentic Solutions: Commerce enables e-commerce businesses to understand their data and deliver personalized customer experiences at scale. The platform helps organizations embrace agentic commerce, leveraging AI agents to autonomously drive engagement and growth. This is achieved by unifying disparate data silos and applying predictive machine learning, which allows the AI agents to dynamically analyze user behavior and execute tailored customer interactions in real time.
Route’s Product Recommendations: Route uses AI to help e-commerce brands improve the online shopping experience through package protection, tracking and returns management. Its technology detects and resolves shipping issues like loss, theft and damage while using machine learning for fraud verification and claims processing. It also offers AI-driven customer engagement tools designed to boost sales and loyalty, including personalized product recommendations and streamlined post-purchase experiences.
Lowe’s’ Mylow Companion: In 2025, Lowe’s launched an AI-powered assistant called Mylow Companion to help associates improve customer experience on the sales floor by answering questions, providing product recommendations and offering suggestions to support home improvement projects.
Hungryroot’s Smartcart Tool: Hungryroot is an AI-powered grocery meal planning and delivery service that uses machine learning and operations research to generate personalized meal recommendations and rotating recipe selections. The platform analyzes customer preferences through an initial quiz and algorithmically provides ongoing selections based on their orders.
Upside’s Personalized Offers: Upside’s mobile app encourages consumers to shop at brick-and-mortar businesses like gas stations and grocery stores by providing them with personalized cash back rewards at the moment of purchase. The platform uses AI-powered personalization to analyze transaction data and determine the precise offer needed to influence each consumer’s shopping behavior, ensuring promotions are bound by retailer margins.
Smartly’s Social Media Advertising Platform: Smartly is an AI-powered advertising platform that automates social media and cross-channel campaign management for global brands like Uber, Spotify and Samsung. The platform unifies creative production, media optimization and performance intelligence, enabling marketers to build and deploy campaigns across channels. Through a range of SaaS tools leveraging generative AI and machine learning, Smartly automates creative scaling, budget allocation and performance analysis — key capabilities for retail brands managing multi-channel advertising.
Topsort’s Omnichannel Retail Media Platform: Topsort is an AI retail media infrastructure platform that powers commerce monetization for marketplaces, retailers, delivery apps, travel platforms and commerce networks across more than 40 countries. The company’s auction-based engine enables businesses to launch, scale and optimize retail media campaigns across onsite, offsite and in-store channels.
Klaviyo’s K:AI Agents: Klaviyo provides a SaaS marketing-tech platform that targets customers based on predictive insights and uses AI to create personalized automations. Beyond predictive insights, Klaviyo developed K:AI agents capable of autonomous creating marketing campaigns and providing customer support.
Perplexity’s Comet Browser: Perplexity’s Comet browser integrates AI-powered shopping capabilities that enable users to research and purchase products through conversational search. The platform’s shopping features — including Buy with Pro for and Snap to Shop visual search — allow users to discover unbiased product recommendations and complete transactions without leaving the interface. Comet’s shopping experience currently integrates with Shopify storefronts and select merchants, with expansion planned to additional retailers and markets.
Mondelēz International’s Research and Development Tools: Mondēlez International, the global snacks manufacturer, integrates AI across its business to drive innovation and efficiency. The company’s AI product development (AIPD) tool accelerates recipe formulation, enabling rapid new product launches while maintaining human creativity in the process. Beyond R&D, the company scales AI across pricing, supply chain optimization and marketing to enhance decision-making and reduce operational waste.
Zeta’s Athena Platform: Zeta Global combines AI and marketing automation to identify potential customers and personalize experiences. With the technology, users can also automate marketing activities and apply data insights to strengthen customer relationships.
Anaplan’s Predictive Intelligence Platform: Anaplan, an AI-driven scenario planning and analysis platform, empowers retailers with intelligent forecasting and optimization across merchandise, inventory and supply chain planning. The platform combines big data, predictive and generative AI with deterministic calculations to enable retailers to model scenarios, allocate inventory precisely and forecast demand with greater accuracy.
Scotch’s AI-Powered Reorder Points and Demand Forecasting: Scotch offers software to help liquor stores manage sales, inventory, suppliers, pricing and online orders. Its reorder points use AI to predict busy periods and high-velocity items. The AI-powered inventory management software also uses sales history to set dynamic reorder points.
Whatnot’s Digital Sales System: Whatnot is a digital sales platform where users can bid on and buy a wide range of items, from fashion and jewellery to collectibles. Its live streams display goods for sale, allowing buyers and sellers to connect and use live videos for commerce. The company uses artificial intelligence to streamline seller operations, recently launching AI tools that enable rapid product listing creation via phone camera, real-time inventory updates during livestreams and automated fulfillment features like shipping label generation and drop-off verification.
Fellow AI’s Autonomous Warehouse Robots: Fellow AI develops autonomous mobile robots for retail inventory management and customer assistance. The company’s NAVii robot uses advanced artificial intelligence and 3D mapping to scan store aisles, identifying out-of-stock items, price discrepancies and misplaced products while alerting employees via mobile devices.
IBM’s Watson: IBM’s Watson uses AI to help retail companies create more personalized purchasing experiences using real-time data that more accurately reflects a customer’s current buying status. Retail businesses such as Frito-Lay, Home Depot and others use IBM’s technology to streamline supply chain operations and make shopping unique to each customer.
Mixbook’s Auto-Create Tool: Mixbook is a platform for creating custom photo products, such as photo books, cards and calendars. The company uses generative AI and machine learning to power its Auto-Create feature, which automatically designs photo books by placing photos onto pages and spreads. Meanwhile, Mixbook’s AI-powered Smart Captions feature generates personalized, creative captions for photos, enabling users to tell their stories with minimal effort.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is AI being used in retail and e-commerce?
AI powers chatbots, product recommendations, demand forecasting, automation tools and even autonomous checkout systems that improve operations and customer experiences.
What are examples of AI technologies used by major retailers?
Companies like Amazon use AI shopping assistants, eBay offers generative listing tools, and OpenAI enables instant checkout through its agentic commerce protocol.
How does AI improve the customer shopping experience?
By analyzing consumer behavior and purchase history, AI can offer personalized product suggestions, simplify transactions and enhance customer service through conversational tools.
What benefits do businesses gain from AI in retail?
Retailers report faster operations, smarter inventory management, better marketing efficiency and increased sales through predictive insights and automation.
