How Generative AI Is Changing The Game In Commerce Search
Generative AI (genAI) continues to reshape how organizations use technology — including in digital commerce. For organizations selling online, this means reimagining internal operations and innovation as well as customer-facing initiatives. Forrester predicts that in 2025, one in five US and EMEA retailers will launch customer-facing genAI applications. GenAI also ranked in the top 10 investments for retailers and brands in 2024.
To help our clients better understand genAI’s impact on commerce-related solutions, we launched a research series in which we ask vendors to outline how they’re currently bringing genAI applications into their live product. Following our initial analysis around B2C commerce and point of service, our third report focuses on the impact of genAI on commerce search, which includes feedback from 21 commerce/site search providers.
Here’s a peek at what our research uncovered:
- Shopping assistants are the most common application for genAI in commerce search. Thirteen of the 21 vendors included a shopping assistant use case in their current solution offering or roadmap. These customer-facing assistants feel like a chat agent used for customer service. The shopping assistants respond to shopper questions with tailored recommendations, gift ideas, or product details. They refine their responses based on inputs from the shopper.
- Product data enrichment is a window of opportunity for genAI enhancements. GenAI is taking on the tediousness of generating comprehensive product descriptions that align with branding, language/locale, and data requirements, as well as optimizing product content for different audiences. Some solutions also leverage genAI to interpret product photos, generate attributes based on the images, and use the attributes to enrich the product data.
- There’s potential for a more sophisticated search experience. Some genAI use cases that are still in development include ways to further enhance the search experience for shoppers. GenAI will bring more relevant product and content recommendations as it learns to better perceive the intent of the shopper. It will also boost product data with more sophisticated tools that will interpret content from more sources.
Check out the full report for all of our findings, plus insights about how to approach this cutting-edge tech. Curious to learn more? Let’s connect — schedule an inquiry or guidance session with us!