The retail landscape has undergone a seismic shift in the past year, with the 2024 holiday season serving as a watershed moment for conversational commerce. As we speak with clients and analyse the data from this pivotal period, one thing becomes abundantly clear: the way customers discover, evaluate, and purchase products has fundamentally changed. With the explosion of choice and experiences, this evolution demands a complete rethink of omnichannel strategies as customer experience leaders to stay ahead of customer needs and align with brand goals.
The new AI-powered customer journey
The traditional customer journey—awareness, consideration, decision—still exists, but the pathways customers take have multiplied and become increasingly AI-mediated. Recent data from Salesforce reveals that two in five holiday purchases were influenced by consumers engaging with AI-powered tools and assistants. This isn’t merely a statistical blip; it’s evidence of a profound transformation in shopping behaviour.
Static product pages and rule-based filters that once formed the backbone of digital retail experiences are rapidly becoming obsolete. In their place, AI-powered virtual shopping assistants are creating dynamic, responsive interactions that mirror the best aspects of in-store service while adding capabilities impossible in the physical realm.
From scripted bots to conversational partners
Perhaps the most dramatic shift has been in customer expectations around AI interactions. The generic, scripted chatbots of yesteryear—”How may I assist you today?”—are now actively hurting conversion rates. Adobe Digital Insights reported that AI-powered chatbots drove an astounding 1,300% more traffic through links to retail sites during the 2024 holiday season compared to 2023. But this success wasn’t universal; it belonged to brands that designed their AI with the right tone and approach.
The difference between successful and unsuccessful AI implementation often comes down to how these virtual assistants introduce themselves and frame the conversation. Consider these contrasting approaches: A generic AI might begin with: “Hello, I am an AI assistant from Brand X. How can I help you today?” A more effective AI would say: “I see you’re looking at our winter collection. The new cashmere sweaters have been particularly popular this season, especially for gifting. Would you like me to help you find the perfect size or colour?”
The second approach demonstrates contextual awareness, proactive assistance, and a human-like understanding of the shopping moment. This isn’t merely about pleasantries—it’s about conversion. Research consistently shows that all digital touchpoints and especially AI agents that are in brand voice, express empathy and offer intuitive guidance, generate significantly higher engagement and sales.
Social platforms: From marketing channels to primary storefronts
Another significant shift in the customer journey is happening at the very beginning—the discovery phase. Social media platforms, once primarily used for brand awareness and engagement, have now become fully-fledged commerce environments where the entire shopping journey, from discovery to checkout, can occur without ever leaving the platform.
The statistics are compelling: 82 percent of consumers now use social media for product research. While not evenly distributed across segments, platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube are beginning to replace Google and even Amazon as the starting point for many shopping journeys.
This evolution requires us to reconsider our funnels. Social channels are no longer just top-of-funnel awareness drivers—they’re now primary demand generators with direct conversion potential. The implications for how we allocate marketing resources and design customer experiences are significant.
Successful brands are responding by shifting ad spend toward influencer partnerships and developing content strategies specifically tailored for social commerce. The most forward-thinking retailers are ensuring seamless transitions when customers move from social platforms to owned channels, maintaining context and personalisation throughout.
The rise of external AI shopping assistants
Perhaps the most disruptive trend is the growing use of third-party AI assistants like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google Gemini as shopping advisors. According to Adobe, seven in 10 consumers who have used generative AI for shopping report that it enhances their experience.
Perplexity’s recent launch of a dedicated shopping tool that allows consumers to search, compare, and complete purchases directly within the platform signals a fundamental shift in how purchasing decisions are made. Rather than navigating multiple websites and reading dozens of reviews, customers can now simply ask, “What’s the best mattress for back pain under $1,000?” and receive a curated response based on aggregated data.
This creates both challenges and opportunities for retailers. On one hand, these AI platforms become new gatekeepers between brands and consumers. On the other hand, they represent an opportunity to reach customers at pivotal decision moments with precisely targeted information.
The brands that will succeed in this new ecosystem are those that ensure their product data is structured for AI readability and develop strategies to maintain their brand voice within AI-generated recommendations. This means optimising product descriptions, specifications, and reviews to be easily parsed and accurately represented by AI systems.
The SEO revolution: From keywords to AI-readable content
The rise of AI-mediated shopping fundamentally alters how we should think about search optimisation. Traditional SEO factors like keyword density and backlinks still matter, but they’re increasingly overshadowed by AI-readability and structured data.
When a customer asks an AI assistant about product recommendations, the AI doesn’t simply conduct a Google search and relay the results. Instead, it interprets information, evaluates options, and generates a synthesised response. The brands that appear in these recommendations aren’t necessarily those with the highest SEO rankings but those whose product information is most accessible and comprehensible to AI systems.
Ethan Mollick, the renowned AI thought leader and a professor at Wharton, recently highlighted how AI agents are increasingly driving not just product recommendations but also decisions about where to purchase those products. This trend necessitates a fundamental rethink of digital marketing strategies, with an emphasis on ensuring your brand maintains visibility and authority within AI-mediated shopping journeys.
The path forward for CX leaders
As we navigate this rapidly evolving landscape, several strategic imperatives emerge for customer experience leaders in omnichannel retail:
- Invest in AI-powered product discovery that reduces friction in browsing and buying. This means implementing conversational AI that can truly understand customer needs and preferences, not just respond to keywords.
- Optimise your AI for true decision support. The most effective AI assistants go beyond answering frequently asked questions to actively guiding customers through complex decisions with personalised recommendations.
- Ensure your AI learns continuously from customer interactions. The difference between good and great AI often comes down to how effectively it improves over time based on real customer data.
- Humanise your AI interactions. Design your virtual assistants with empathy, contextual awareness, and a tone that aligns with your brand values while meeting customer emotional needs.
- Develop an integrated strategy across owned and third-party AI ecosystems. This means both optimising your own AI assistants and ensuring your brand is effectively positioning content to be represented in external AI platforms that increasingly influence purchasing decisions.
The conversational commerce imperative
The data from the 2024 holiday season makes it clear: AI-driven commerce isn’t a futuristic concept—it’s defining how customers shop today. The retailers who successfully integrate conversational AI into their customer experience strategy while adapting to AI-driven consideration journeys will lead the next wave of omnichannel retail.
As customer experience leaders, we face a choice: we can approach these changes as incremental adjustments to existing strategies, or we can recognise them for what they truly are—a fundamental reimagining of the relationship between retailers, customers, and technology. Those who embrace the latter perspective will not only survive this transition but thrive in the new era of conversational commerce.
