AI has a profound impact on how customers find, research, and buy products. It gives brands another avenue for customers to learn about their products.
However, while it’s providing plenty of opportunities for consumers to streamline their shopping and brands to get their products in front of more eyes than ever, some challenges need to be addressed for AI to reach its full potential in ecommerce.
AI is Impacting Ecommerce in Multiple Ways
Both customers and ecommerce brands are feeling the effect of AI taking over the ecommerce space.
On the customer side of things, AI has shifted how consumers discover, research, shop for, and buy products. In fact, stats show that 61.5% of consumers have used AI for product discovery and recommendations.
For ecommerce brands, they’re also using AI, but for a wide range of different tasks like providing product recommendations, managing inventory, offering 24/7 support, detecting fraud, and personalizing the customer experience.
This high usage makes sense, as other data shows that over three-quarters of ecommerce brands are actively investing in AI. However, there’s also some friction and potential issues among both consumers and ecommerce brands when it comes to AI. If these issues aren’t solved, these investments in AI discovery could end up offering little to no returns.
The Trust Gap is Widening
One of the main issues with AI for ecommerce shoppers is an unwillingness to give it full control over the purchasing process. While most are confident using it for research and shopping, 55% aren’t comfortable with AI agents making purchases on their behalf.
This echoes previous research that says people prefer AI for supportive tasks, but not full purchase control. Interestingly enough, as usage of AI for shopping becomes more mainstream, general comfort around deeper AI involvement is declining.
A major reason for this unwillingness to put full trust in AI is security, as 53.9% of people believe that AI can increase the risk of online fraud. As a result, the trust gap is widening in AI ecommerce.
While customers increasingly love and trust it for helping them throughout their shopping journey, they’re hesitating to give it full control due to fraud and security-related concerns.
For AI to reach its final form in the ecommerce space, this trust gap needs to shrink, and shoppers need to be as comfortable letting AI buy products for them as they are letting it discover and research items.
Narrowing the Trust Gap
Building trust in AI not easy, but there are some ways to narrow the trust gap among consumers. Firstly, be transparent and have the AI explain why the product was recommended and how it’s a good choice based on their needs.
Next, let consumers set things like spending limits or budget ranges, or ensure that approval is required for purchases over a certain amount. It should also be easy for customers to o undo or reverse agent purchases for a short period before it becomes official.
Finally, emphasize security and privacy by partnering with trusted banks and card networks and using strong security measures like two-factor authentication, passwords, and/or biometric authentication.
Addressing the security concerns, in particular, is likely one of the biggest ways to boost trust in AI purchasing. In fact, 73.9% of people want strong safeguards for each transaction, such as one-time passwords and biometric verification.
When asked who should be held responsible for unauthorized AI purchases, 50.8% of people said the AI platform itself is to blame. But while the AI platforms themselves are the most accountable according to customers, 23.2% blame the retailer or brand, and only 18.7% take personal responsibility.
Becoming More Visible as a Brand
In addition to helping narrow this trust gap so that consumers are more comfortable purchasing within AI, brands also have more on their plates regarding AI. One of the biggest shifts is that AI is making companies reimagine how they manage and expose product data.
AI surfaces products in a manner that not many brands are prepared for. If you don’t adjust how you organize and present the data about your products, you may fail to get any visibility in AI chats or AI search results.
While you may have the perfect product for a consumer, it may not even be findable or recommendable within the AI platform that the consumer is using for research. And with 20% of digital commerce transactions projected to be executed by AI platforms or agents by 2030, businesses must ensure their data is visible to AI.
There are several ways to boost this visibility. For example, you need to ensure your product data is accurate and up-to-date. This includes the pricing, availability, descriptions, dimensions, and more.
Don’t just mention the features of the product, mention also the benefits it provides, its use cases, and the problems it can help with. You also need to provide answers to common customer questions about the product.
Lastly, consider boosting your social proof by including customer ratings and reviews for your products, as this can show the AI that other shoppers have enjoyed them in the past.
While AI is still relatively fresh in the ecommerce space, it’s clearly having a huge impact. There are plenty of opportunities for brands in this space, but also some challenges that need to be addressed for AI shopping to reach its potential.
