How Could AI Support Your Ecommerce Business?
There is no denying that artificial intelligence (AI) is here to stay. In the past two years, a multitude of AI tools have appeared to support all kinds of retailers and, naturally, this technology can be valuable to ecommerce businesses.
But how can you use it effectively? And are consumers ready for it?
The answer to the second question is a definite “yes”, based on research conducted at the end of 2025 by CI&T.
Their report found that 61 per cent of consumers in the UK and Ireland either had used or continue to use AI while shopping. Interestingly, over two-thirds of those surveyed expressed a desire for retailers to use AI to improve their shopping experiences.
One of the biggest takeaways was that customers want retailers to use AI in a way that saves them time. This means exploring ways of automating repeat purchases will be valuable and highlights why subscription services continue to be popular.
But if you’re offering a regular subscription, especially for products that consumers use in their day-to-day lives like toiletries or groceries, it’s essential you have goods fulfilment services you can trust.
Agentic AI is another area to explore
Although it sounds futuristic, agentic AI is also an area that online retailers should explore based on this research. This is because agentic AI is able to make product suggestions based on purchasing and browsing history.
It takes the process a step further than the targeted advertising that we increasingly see on social media.
In some cases, AI agents can be instructed to take over the whole purchasing process – from choosing the products to actually paying for them, leaving the customer to simply collect their order from a relevant store if it’s not delivered directly to their home.
As machine learning specialist Ravi Kumar noted when talking to EuroShop, this means efficiency and pricing will be key areas to focus on to ensure that not only human customers, but also their AI agents, continue to turn to them for their purchases.
Streamlined shipping and stock control becomes paramount in such scenarios, to prevent purchases of items that are out of stock and to ensure that online orders are processed and shipped as efficiently as possible
AI for data analysis
As an ecommerce business, you will likely have a great deal of data about which products you sell, when and to whom. However, analysing this data can be a challenge. This is where AI tools can provide some support.
AI is able to process and interpret data on a scale far faster than the human brain, which means it can provide valuable insights that you can use to inform your decisions as you grow your ecommerce business.
This might mean highlighting certain times of the year when orders spike and you need to ensure you have more products available with your fulfilment partner for shipping, or pointing out which product ranges are selling best and adjusting future lines accordingly.
Ultimately, this level of data analysis takes the guesswork away and makes it much easier for you to focus on what you do best.