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Mike de la Cruz, President, iAdvize
Shopping no longer starts with a search. It starts with an AI assistant.
Whether it’s ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Gemini, more consumers are turning to generative AI assistants to start shopping, asking what to buy, comparing options, and narrowing choices before ever landing on a brand’s website.
The adoption curve has been steep: By February 2025, Adobe reports that US retail traffic from generative AI has surged 12x in just seven months. Capgemini: 71% of consumers want generative AI woven into their shopping experiences. We see the same shift across our customer base.
This isn’t a trend. It’s a tipping point.
Merchants must adapt to the new user journey. Static websites and passive chatbots won’t cut it. Merchants need a new storefront, one that is built for both humans and AI agents and one that engages, adapts, and converts from the first prompt.
The New User Journey: From "Browse and Hope" to "Shop for Me"
For over twenty years, digital commerce followed a script: drive traffic from Google, convert 2–3% on-site, and accept that most shoppers bounce. Consumers accepted this “browse and hope” model (search, skim, repeat) as the only way to shop online.
It's more of a loop than a journey. The average shopper waded through search results, filters, and product grids. Starting with “best hypoallergenic sunscreens,” for example, produced overwhelming options, not a conversion.
That traditional model is in decline.
Now shoppers are turning to AI with a new mindset: "Shop for me”. They want guidance, not guesswork, and they’re using generative AI assistants. US retail traffic from generative AI soared 1,200% between July 2024 and February 2025.
AI is the gateway for online shopping. The brands that win will be those who meet shoppers at this new entry point.
Merchants Must Adapt
We get this question a lot: “Does the merchant website go away?”
The traditional storefront? Yes, it is already fading in relevance. It’s built for browsing, filtering, and scrolling along a rigid path: home page → search/navigate → filter results → review product details and other content → repeat the loop → (hopefully) purchase. It assumes that the consumer does all their shopping on the merchant website, and that they will do all the work.
We are just as confident that the merchant store will not go away, but it must adapt to the new user journey. Humans still want to shop but will be used to AI assistants that do a lot of the work. Human and AI buyers still need to work with sellers (brands). Consumers who start on ChatGPT or Perplexity will still also shop at the merchant store for many reasons (for example, do you ever find a product on Amazon or a retailer, then buy from the DTC site?).
And finally, we believe people will still go to merchant sites to explore, have fun, and find inspiration!
The New AI Storefront
The storefront is the "face" of a store where customers browse, interact with products, and ultimately make purchases. But in today’s AI-first journey, the storefront must evolve.
The AI Storefront isn’t a plugin or a chatbot — it’s the next digital experience that combines personalized AI guidance, an adaptive user interface, and readiness for agent-to-agent commerce. It’s built to engage both human shoppers and AI assistants, helping them move from discovery to decision.
In this new model, the merchant storefront has a bold new mandate:
- Be more merchant-specific, conversion-focused than general AI assistants
- Represent the brand’s unique voice - its personality, tone, and sales approach
- Anticipate needs for both human and AI buyers
- Proactively recommend and act to remove friction
- Drive decision-making and conversion
It’s not another website redesign or AI-generated copy.
The new storefront is an AI agent.
Our Vision
We believe the merchant’s AI shopping assistant will become the new AI storefront.
That’s why we built iAdvize Copilot, a merchant’s AI assistant, to be part of the storefront experience:
- It is not behind the chat bubble.
- It already delivers up to 10x engagement of AI chatbots.
- It’s designed to convert, with immersive shopping experiences and an adaptive UI that knows when to guide and when to get out of the way.
- And we’re learning what it takes to engage and convert more of today’s shoppers at hundreds of e-commerce stores.
What’s coming next?
iAdvize Copilot will become a full AI storefront. We are already collaborating with forward-thinking brands so they can:
- Offer iAdvize Copilot as an alternative to the traditional web storefront to human shoppers. We expect it will win over more and more consumers who prefer curated 1:1 experiences, spanning discovery, consideration, purchase, and support.
- Connect AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity to their storefront to provide real-time context and maximize sell through in agent-to-agent shopping transactions (MCP server)
- Leverage their investments in their brand, customer insights, and e-commerce stack and systems to power their new AI storefront
If you’re thinking about agentic commerce, we’d love to share what we’ve learned.
