What was once a transactional space is now an intelligent ecosystem where data, automation, and personalization converge to create seamless, intuitive shopping experiences. At the heart of this transformation is artificial intelligence (AI), which is reshaping how brands and retailers engage, sell, and serve alongside disrupting the established path to purchase, influencing not only how shoppers’ shop, but where they shop too.
Almost 50% of internet traffic is non-human, and as AI agents and algorithms start to do more of the hard work, and helping to shortcut discovery, increase personalized experiences and even purchase items on behalf of shoppers, the content, product data and the language it’s communicated in must adapt fast.
As shopper expectations evolve, so too must the strategies brands and retailers use to meet them. AI is not just enhancing e-commerce; it’s redefining it. From personalized journeys to scalable content operations, AI is enabling businesses to deliver faster, smarter, and more relevant experiences at scale.
Let’s discover how AI is reshaping the shopper experience, aiding brands and retailers with smarter product content, and changing expectations for product data and information.
How is AI reshaping the shopping experience for shoppers?
Generative AI: Powering Content and Conversations
Generative AI is revolutionizing customer interaction and content creation. Behind the scenes, AI is helping brands and retailers create dynamic product content. It can help to generate product descriptions, FAQs, and promotional content, adapted in real time to audience segments, and optimized for the best performance.
Generative AI is also helping to change discovery by generating product recommendations and content based on individual preferences, user history, browsing behavior, and context, helping to speed up decision making.
Agentic Shopping: Driving Hyper-personalization at Scale
Agentic commerce is a new way of shopping online or via mobile, where an AI “agent” takes over tasks like searching, comparing, and purchasing, often with little to no manual input from the user.
For example, a shopper may instruct their AI assistant to, “Order me a new electric toothbrush with great battery life under $100” or “Restock my weekly groceries with healthy staples from my favorite grocery store.” The AI agent reviews the shopper’s past orders, checks current store inventories, applies loyalty discounts, and places the order, all while keeping the shopper informed. These agents continually learn using past data to improve the personalization of their shopper each time the service is used.
Computer Vision: Seeing is Believing
Visual search and augmented reality (AR) are redefining how consumers find and experience products before purchasing. With computer vision, shoppers can upload images or products they’ve seen in the real world, on social media, and more to find similar items instantly on ecommerce platforms.
AR try-ons allow users to visualize products, whether it’s furniture in their living room or home office to test how items look in their own spaces, or makeup on their face to test shade variations and compatibility. These AI-driven tools are bridging the gap between digital and physical retail.
Real-time streaming helps to make these visual discovery methods more dynamic, providing shoppers with live product feeds that show real-time pricing, availability, promotions and even contextually aware information, for example recommending comfort foods during colder weather. In agentic shopping, AI agents need to deliver fast, accurate, and context-rich experiences. Real-time streaming makes computer vision tools not just smart, but responsive, turning static visual discovery into a dynamic, personalized journey.
Voice Commerce: The Rise of Conversational Shopping
Smart speakers and voice assistants are now becoming shopping companions for many consumers. From reordering essentials to discovering new products, voice commerce is making transactions more frictionless and accessible, especially for multitaskers and those with accessibility needs.
NIQ Data indicates that 29% of shoppers in markets like Germany are likely or very likely to trust recommendations from their AI assistants like Alexa or Siri.
With a simple voice instruction, these assistants can place items into shopper baskets on ecommerce platforms like Amazon, recommend alternatives based on availability or preferences and even complete the checkout process, all without the shopper needing to lift a finger. This hands-free, conversational approach is redefining convenience and setting new expectations for how consumers interact with brands.
Real-time streaming is also important for voice commerce. Shoppers are simply switching visual search for voice-instruction, but they are still looking for up-to-date, accurate and dynamic information based on core factors like availability, price and promotions. In an omnichannel setting, shoppers are utilizing voice and visual search features on their phones while shopping in store, making the need for consistent and precise product content more important than ever before. Google in particular is investing heavily in this space, enabling voice-powered agents to tap into live data streams to support dynamic, context-aware recommendations.
From SEO to GEO: Optimizing for the AI-Driven Customer Journey
For years, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has been the cornerstone of digital visibility, structuring content to rank well in search engines and attract traffic. But as AI becomes embedded in the new shopper journey, a new paradigm is emerging: Generative Experience Optimization (GEO).
GEO focuses not just on discoverability, but on experience quality within AI-powered environments. Instead of optimizing product content for keywords alone, brands must now consider how their content performs in these conversational interfaces, voice assistants, and generative search environments.
The shift toward GEO over SEO also reflects the new way in which shoppers are searching and entering the discovery stage of their journey to purchase. Shoppers are no longer just searching; they’re asking. Now, they pose natural language questions that ask agents full questions like ‘What snacks can I buy that are high protein and low sugar that are under $2 a serving?’
This means creating content that is contextually rich, semantically clear, and dynamically adaptable, ready to be surfaced by AI systems that prioritize relevance, intent, and user satisfaction.
This style of search is not limited to agentic shopping and the rise of AI powered discovery; it is starting to influence how shoppers are searching across all engines, including ecommerce platforms and retail apps. Even if GEO is at only its emerging stages, the need for this optimized attribution and contextually rich data already exists for traditional SEO.
GEO represents a shift from chasing rankings to crafting experiences. It’s about meeting consumers where they are, whether that’s in a chatbot conversation, a voice query, or an AR try-on, and delivering content that is accurate, feels intuitive, personalized, and trustworthy.
Caper Carts – Where Smart Retail Meets Smart Content
One of the most compelling examples of AI transforming the in-store experience is Caper Carts, developed by Instacart. These smart shopping carts are equipped with computer vision, sensors, and interactive screens, allowing customers to scan items, track spending, access promotions, and even check out, all directly from the cart itself.
But the magic behind Caper Carts isn’t just in the hardware, it’s in the accuracy and richness of product content that powers the experience. They are an example of the true omnichannel use of product content, relying on the content that fuels the online experience to start developing a truly optimized in-store experience.
To identify items correctly, Caper Carts rely on precise product data, including visual attributes, weight, pricing, and metadata. This enables real-time recognition of products as they’re placed in the cart, eliminating the need for manual scanning. The cart’s screen then displays contextual product information, such as nutritional details, reviews, and personalized recommendations driven by AI and tailored to the shopper’s behavior.
Retailers trialing the use of Caper Carts, like Morrisons, ShopRite and Geissler’s Supermarkets, have seen increased engagement and basket sizes. Customers appreciate the ability to see running totals, clip digital coupons, and receive targeted offers based on their location in the store and items in their cart. This level of personalization is only possible with high-quality, structured product content that AI systems can interpret and act upon.
Moreover, Caper Carts support multilingual interfaces and accessibility features, making the shopping experience inclusive and intuitive for a broader audience. As AI continues to evolve, the demand for dynamic, enriched product content will only grow, fueling smarter carts, smarter stores, and smarter shopping.
How brands and retailers must evolve to meet new AI expectations
In the age of agentic shopping, AI models don’t rely on a single source of truth; they synthesize information from multiple inputs to build a comprehensive understanding, often referred to as ‘context management,’ of products and their relevance to a shopper’s query.
This means that both rich, well-explained copy and precise, structured product attributes play a vital role. Descriptive content helps AI agents interpret context, use cases, and emotional cues, while structured attributes, like size, material, compatibility, or sustainability credentials, provide the factual backbone needed for accurate filtering and recommendation.
When these elements are streamed in real time, agents can confidently surface products that match not just the shopper’s intent, but also current availability, location, and preferences. In short, the more complete and interpretable the content, the more likely it is that AI agents will find it, understand it, and recommend it.
Summary: Changing Expectations for Product Content
As AI transforms the mechanics of retail, it’s reshaping the expectations around product content.
01
Must speak the AI Language
Product content must be structured in a way that AI systems can understand, interpret, and act on. This means using clean, consistent data formats, enriched attributes, and semantic tagging that allow AI agents to understand and respond to shopper queries accurately. Content needs to be agent-readable, not just human-friendly, so it can power search, recommendations, and conversational commerce.
02
Accurate Content
Accuracy is foundational to AI’s functionality. AI agents rely on precise product data to make decisions on behalf of users. Inaccurate specs, outdated descriptions, or missing attributes can lead to poor recommendations, broken trust, and lost sales. Brands must ensure that every detail, from dimensions to compatibility, is verified and consistently maintained across channels.
03
Real-Time and Context-Aware
Shoppers expect content that reflects real-time availability, pricing, and promotions. AI agents rely on up-to-date, structured data to make decisions on behalf of users. To ensure data is timely and accurate at the time a shopper is utilizing these new AI payment systems, some platforms like OpenAI are receiving data through feeds as often as every 15 minutes. This means brands must maintain content that’s not only rich and accurate, but also timely and context aware.
04
Dynamic and rich content
Static content is giving way to dynamic, multimedia-rich experiences. AI-powered platforms thrive on layered content—videos, 360° images, interactive specs, and user-generated reviews—that help shoppers explore products more deeply. Rich content also enables AI to surface the most relevant information based on user intent, device, or channel, creating a more engaging and personalized experience.
Conclusion: The Future of AI Shopping Starts with Smarter Data
AI is no longer just a tool; it’s a catalyst for reimagining retail. From how products are discovered to how they’re presented, experienced, and purchased, AI is enabling brands to meet consumers where they are— and where they’re going.
For retailers and brands, the challenge and opportunity lie in embracing this shift through accurate, rich and fully optimized product data to deliver smarter, more human-centric experiences.
Get started with smarter product content today:
Learn more about how NIQ Brandbank is the perfect partner for helping you create, manage and syndicate your digital product content. With over 1,250 FMCG attributes and 50,000 Tech attributes available, our expert teams help power your product content, optimizing it for the future of ecommerce across the digital shelf.
