by David Hewlett
GREENBRAE, CA – Shifts in retail buying behavior take much longer than people expect. Early in my career, I worked at PriceGrabber during the rise of comparison shopping. Even though the company grew significantly, it still took a long time for consumers to learn about and adopt that way of shopping.
Looking at my own experience on Amazon over the past five years, I can’t point to many changes that fundamentally altered how I shop. The platform has evolved and improved around the edges, but there hasn’t been a truly monumental shift. While AI has clear potential to improve the shopping experience, I think we’re still a long way from the AI-driven shopping utopia that gets so much attention.
In the near term, the biggest changes may be felt more by sellers than by consumers as retailers figure out how to use AI. Small adjustments, like tweaks to search suggestions, may feel insignificant to shoppers but can have major consequences for sellers—dramatically changing traffic and visibility.
A recent article by Walmart about using AI reminds me of that dynamic. It could become harder for new brands to gain recognition if AI systems increasingly steer customers toward products they’ve already purchased.
That said, as a consumer, I’m genuinely excited to see where AI takes the shopping experience. I hope it’s implemented in a way that makes shopping more enjoyable and helps people discover products they couldn’t easily describe through a basic search. Ultimately, it will come down to execution and how effectively user experience teams design AI-driven tools for consumers.
David Hewlett is owner of SmartLabels, Greenbrae, Calif.