2026年电商AI报告

Introduction environments, forcing businesses to rethink discovery,trust and visibility in an AI-mediated market. The second, Experience AI, focuses on the AIsystems retailers and brands build for customersdirectly. Here, the challenge is redesigning digitalcommerce experiences around simplification,confidence and guidance. AI is increasinglybecoming part of the interface layer of commerceitself, shaping how customers search, evaluate andengage across channels. AI has rapidly become the defining conversationin modern commerce, yet many businesses aresimultaneously struggling to separate meaningfultransformation from noise, hype and vendor promises. This uncertainty exists because AI is not arrivingas a single technology shift, instead reshapingcommerce from multiple directions simulataneously.Consumers are beginning to use external AI toolssuch as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity to discover,compare and evaluate products before they evervisit a retailer website. Retailers are deploying AI-powered experiences designed to simplify shopping,personalise engagement and reduce friction acrossincreasingly complex digital journeys. The third pillar, Capability AI, examines theoperational transformation taking place insideorganisations. Increasingly, customer experience andoperational intelligence are converging into a singlecapability stack. Finally, Strategic AI looks beyond individual toolsand deployments towards the wider restructuring ofcommerce itself. As AI reshapes customer behaviour,enterprise operations and ecosystem dynamics,businesses must rethink what createslong-term value. Internally, businesses are embedding AI intooperations, forecasting, logistics, content productionand decision-making in ways that fundamentallyalter how organisations function. At the sametime, boards and investors are confronting muchlarger strategic questions around data ownership,competitive advantage, platform dependency andenterprise value in an AI-driven economy. But this report does not argue that AI is a magicsolution. Nor does it suggest that every businessmust become a technology company. What it doesshow is that AI is rapidly becoming part of theoperating environment of commerce itself. These are the four pillars of Commerce AI and it isthese that this report explores. The organisations that succeed are unlikely to bethose with the loudest AI marketing or the mostexperimental pilots; it’ll be those that are capable ofusing AI to create more adaptive operations, moretrusted customer experiences and more resilientlong-term strategies. The first pillar, External AI, examines how AI assistants,conversational search and emerging agentic shoppingsystems are changing the balance of power betweenconsumers, retailers and platforms. Increasingly, thecustomer journey begins outside retailer-controlled Pillar 1: External AI The issue of how consumers use AI –and what AI they use – is foundationalto commerceAI. The data shows thatshoppers have embraced the technology,but are taking it in surprising directions TOOLS THE CUSTOMER BRINGSThe first pillar of commerce AI is how consumers use the technology as part of their shopping activities– a fundamental that is reshaping retail right here,right now. The first and most important point inthe data is that consumer AI shopping behaviouris not futuristic. It is already here, but it is unevenlydistributed across the shopping journey. Consumersare not yet handing over full purchasing authorityto autonomous agents at scale. They are, however,increasingly comfortable using AI to research,compare, summarise, filter and structure choices. This distinction matters because it shows where theimmediate commercial disruption lies. The first waveof external AI in retail is less about robots silentlybuying groceries in the background and more aboutconsumers arriving at retailers with much of thediscovery, comparison and consideration processalready mediated by a third-party AI system. This is a significant minority willing to experimentwith autonomous replenishment, but it is not yet amainstream licence for AI to buy unchecked. Similarly,43.2% say they would prefer an AI assistant helpingwith shopping to be able to complete the purchaserather than just suggest products, but 56.8% disagree.Consumers want assistance, not abdication. The picture changes when consumers retainoversight (see chart overleaf). Some 57.8% would behappy for an AI assistant to add items to an onlinebasket so long as they can review and approve thebefore paying. Some 60% would like an AI assistantto monitor prices and automatically buy a productwhen it falls below a threshold they have set. The chart opposite shows this tension clearly. Only45.9% of consumers agree or strongly agree thatthey would be comfortable allowing an AI assistantto place routine orders automatically withoutchecking every detail, while 54.1% disagree This is the emerging boundary of consumerpermission: consumers are more willing todelegate t