Ecommerce Trends: How Data and AI Strategies Determine Where Consumers Shop
Artificial intelligence is no longer a buzzword sitting on the edge of retail innovation — it has moved squarely into the center of how the world's biggest retailers operate. From personalized product recommendations to AI-powered chatbots, leading brands like Amazon, Walmart, Gap, and Levi Strauss are actively deploying new AI solutions to improve outcomes across their entire operations. And according to new survey data, consumers are growing increasingly comfortable with these tools. But comfort alone doesn't tell the full story.
As AI becomes more embedded in the shopping experience, a critical gap is emerging between how retailers collect and use customer data and how much shoppers actually understand about those practices. This gap represents both a challenge and a significant opportunity for merchants willing to lead with transparency.
The Rise of AI in Retail: What the Data Shows
A new report titled AI Spotlight: Optimizing Data for Agentic Commerce, published by Digital Commerce 360 in partnership with Bizrate Insights, surveyed 1,081 online shoppers during the first half of 2026. The findings paint a nuanced picture of consumer sentiment around AI in ecommerce.
On the positive side, the majority of respondents indicated they were generally comfortable with retailers using AI to enhance the shopping experience. The AI use cases they were most familiar with included product recommendation engines, customer service chatbots, and automated shopping assistants — tools that many consumers interact with on a near-daily basis without necessarily recognizing them as AI-driven.
This growing acceptance signals a meaningful shift in consumer behavior. Just a few years ago, the idea of a bot helping a shopper find the right pair of jeans or suggesting a complementary product might have felt impersonal or intrusive. Today, it's increasingly viewed as a helpful, time-saving feature.
Comfort With AI Does Not Mean Comfort With Data Practices
Despite general openness to AI-powered tools, the same survey revealed that shoppers hold mixed levels of awareness when it comes to how their personal data is being collected and used by retailers. This distinction is important. A consumer might appreciate a personalized recommendation without fully understanding that their browsing history, purchase behavior, location data, and even social signals are feeding the algorithm behind it.
When respondents were asked specifically about data collection and usage policies, their answers highlighted a significant awareness gap. Many shoppers were unsure what data retailers were gathering, how long it was being stored, or who it was being shared with. This uncertainty didn't necessarily translate into outright distrust — but it did reveal an area where the relationship between retailer and consumer remains underbuilt.
For merchants, this is not a warning sign to pull back on AI investment. Rather, it is a clear signal that better communication around data practices can become a genuine competitive differentiator.
How Leading Retailers Are Using AI Right Now
The brands setting the pace in AI-driven commerce are doing so across multiple dimensions of their business. Understanding their approaches offers valuable context for retailers of all sizes looking to build or refine their own strategies.
- Amazon and Walmart have been at the forefront of what is increasingly being called "agentic commerce" — a model where AI agents can autonomously browse, compare, and even complete purchases on behalf of consumers. This moves AI well beyond simple recommendations into active participation in the buying journey.
- Gap has been leveraging AI to optimize its merchandising and inventory decisions, using data signals to better predict what customers want before they know they want it. This kind of predictive intelligence reduces waste and improves the customer experience simultaneously.
- Levi Strauss has explored AI across both the consumer-facing side of its business and its internal operations, using machine learning to improve fit recommendations and reduce return rates — a persistent and costly challenge in fashion ecommerce.
These examples illustrate that AI in retail is not a single tool but a layered strategy that touches customer experience, supply chain, marketing, and operations all at once.
Agentic Commerce: The Next Frontier
One of the most significant themes emerging from the report is the concept of agentic commerce — an evolution of AI shopping assistance where autonomous agents handle increasingly complex tasks on behalf of consumers. Rather than simply surfacing product options, these agents can evaluate trade-offs, apply preferences, and transact independently.
For this model to reach its full potential, data quality and data governance become absolutely critical. An AI agent is only as effective as the data it is trained on and the real-time signals it can access. Retailers that invest now in clean, well-structured, ethically sourced data will be far better positioned to capitalize on the agentic commerce opportunity as it matures.
The Opportunity Hidden in the Awareness Gap
The survey findings make one thing especially clear: the retailers who will win long-term consumer trust are not just the ones deploying the most sophisticated AI. They are the ones who pair that sophistication with genuine transparency about how data is collected, stored, and used.
Practical steps merchants can take include simplifying their privacy policies into plain, readable language, offering consumers meaningful control over their data preferences, and proactively communicating the benefits consumers receive in exchange for sharing their information. When shoppers understand the value exchange — better recommendations, faster service, more relevant offers — they are significantly more likely to engage willingly.
What This Means for Ecommerce Strategy Going Forward
The convergence of AI capability and consumer data is reshaping where and why people choose to shop. Retailers who treat data as a strategic asset — rather than simply a byproduct of transactions — will be best positioned to build the personalized, seamless experiences that today's shoppers increasingly expect.
At the same time, the human element cannot be discounted. Technology builds convenience, but trust builds loyalty. As AI continues to advance and agentic commerce moves from concept to mainstream reality, the retailers who thrive will be those who combine cutting-edge data strategy with a genuine commitment to consumer transparency and respect.
The ecommerce landscape is evolving fast. The brands that understand both the power of AI and the importance of the trust equation will be the ones that determine where consumers choose to spend their money — today and well into the future.