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- A Euromonitor International report says AI-powered search will boost ecommerce by $595 billion in 2028.
- It explained that AI-powered search will shorten the customer journey when choosing what to buy.
- It may require brands to look at other ways of marketing to ensure guaranteed reach.
There is a reason why OpenAI wants to challenge Google in the realm of search, and why both companies have recently launched solutions aimed at shopping powered by AI – revenue.
According to a new report by Euromonitor International, the advent of AI-powered search could result in a boost to the ecommerce landscpae of $595 billion by 2028.
While the majority of generative AI platforms are focused on giving users access to information, the shift to enabling discovery is happening rapidly, the research firm pointed out.
Citing its latest findings from the Passport knowledge hub, Rabia Yasmeen, global insight manager for ecommerce at Euromonitor International, said, “Unlike earlier evolutions such as social commerce or livestreaming, AI-powered search is rewiring how consumers discover brands, evaluate choices and make purchasing decisions online.”
“This shift rewrites the rules of visibility, moving from share of views to share of conversations. AI-driven discovery is redefining how influence, trust and competitiveness are built online, with an impact on the global e-commerce market, the data analytics company highlighted in a release to Hypertext.
The aforementioned figure of $595 billion may also be on the conservative side, with Euromonitor analysing more than 8 700 brands selling online in the United States-based skincare category. As such, a study of more categories may point to even greater amounts of revenue being driven by AI-powered search over the next couple of years.
The potential of AI-powered search may also present an issue for brands and companies that have kept their digital marketing tools for many years, too.
“In traditional search, strong brands could rely on SEO, paid search and retail media to secure prominent placement. In AI-generated answers, there is no guaranteed slot, even for market leaders,” explained Yasmeen.
Here, the manager pointed out that the different pathways that consumers use to eventually buy a product could be upended. The more they stay on AI-powered platforms, the less they will compare products, which is what happened with traditional search. The role of influencers and reviews could be affected too, especially as many users believe what they see on AI platforms to be accurate, along with the role that chatbots could play being another factor.
“The interaction has changed from typing keywords and scrolling through listed products to a conversational platform asking questions in natural language and expecting a precise, context-aware answer,” advised Yasmeen.
While this predicted change has not happened in South African yet, the speed at which the landscape changes in relation to AI, could mean we start to see such influences in the next few months.
[Image – Photo by حامد طه on Unsplash]
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