5+ AI trends in ecommerce: The latest developments

As of today’s date, ecommerce is one of the industries where artificial intelligence is explicitly present. With the help of AI, ecommerce companies build huge databases and try to understand customers’ desires and needs.

The primary goal of ecommerce companies is to influence customer behavior in favor of certain products and brands. These companies are continuously figuring out how they can use artificial applications to improve their business.

In this article, we’ll discuss the latest AI trends in ecommerce. Besides, we try to understand how ecommerce companies apply these trends to their business to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. 

What are the latest AI trends in ecommerce?

1. Chatbots
2. Recommendation tools
3. Visual and voice search
4. Customer relationship management
5. Inventory management
6. Cybersecurity

1. Chatbots

One of the prominent AI trends in ecommerce are the increasing use of chatbots by ecommerce companies. 

According to Fedorko et al. (2022), an increasing number of companies have their customer service 24/7 available. They are able to do this with AI chatbots. The chatbot can answer customer questions and requests, help customers to find suitable products, check the order status, compare products with each other, and help customers with their payments.

If questions or requests are too difficult to answer for the chatbot, then they will hand the conversation over to a real customer support employee. 

For customers, the advantage is that they do not have to wait in endless telephone queues. They can open a chat, ask their question, and do something else while they wait for a response. 

For ecommerce companies, the advantage is that the workload for customer service employees can decline since simple questions can be fully handled by the AI chatbot. 

2. Recommendation systems

Artificial intelligence makes it possible to create statistical programming, forecasting, customer behavior analysis, build datasets, and predict which products have the potential to attract customers. 

Algorithms can identify what the latest searches of customers were. Then, the algorithm captures key information about the searched product. Finally, the recommendation system generates appropriate suggestions within the browser and displays what the customer is most likely looking for. 

3. Visual and voice search

Instead of typing what you are looking for in a search engine or website, artificial intelligence makes it possible to search based on an image or spoken voice. 

In a visual search, a customer can upload an image to a website. The website recognizes the images and displays the output in the search results. 

In a voice search, a customer can use his voice to search for a product or service. The system transcribes the voice query and the results will be displayed in the search results. Voice search is based on natural speech recognition and processing technologies. 

4. Customer relationship management

When a customer purchases a product online, a lot of relevant information can be collected by ecommerce companies. They can collect data about how a customer behaves when shopping, what products the customer selects, and what the average spent amount on a single order is.

This information was in the past managed by employees. Now, AI software is becoming more and more popular. This software enables a company to collect information on customer satisfaction and then ideate a plan on how to respond to customer needs and desires. 

In my opinion, humans are still needed to interpret the data. However, customer relationships are more moving towards a balanced interaction between humans and artificial intelligence. If this balance is right, profit and sales could be maximized. 

5. Inventory management

Artificial intelligence algorithms help ecommerce companies in managing inventory. These algorithms perform an analytical study based on past sales data and they find a correlation between the current and future sales.

These predictions and forecasts can help managers with their decision-making. If they have an idea of what the future sales might be, then they can maintain inventory accordingly. 

6. Cybersecurity

Machine learning algorithms can detect vulnerabilities in systems and ensure security solutions to keep ecommerce platforms secure. In this way, ecommerce companies can protect themselves from hackers and data breaches (Pallathadka et al., 2021).

Summary of AI trends in ecommerce

The ecommerce industry invests more and more in innovative artificial intelligence solutions. We see that new trends emerge and current trends continue to develop.

The main AI trends in ecommerce are chatbots, recommendation systems, visual and voice search, customer relationship management, inventory management, and cybersecurity. 

These trends show that there are plenty of opportunities to improve your business with the help of AI. Know the pain points within your ecommerce business and investigate if AI applications are able to ease the pain.

If you’re interested in reading more of my blog articles about artificial intelligence, please find my blog here.

References

Fedorko, R., Bačík, R., & Kráľ, S. (2022). Artificial Intelligence in E-commerce: A Literature Review. Faculty of Management, University of Presov, Konštantínova 16, 080 01 Prešov, Slovakia.

Pallathadka, H., Ramirez-Asis, E.H., Loli-Poma, T.P., Kaliyaperumal, K., Ventayen, R.J.M., & Naved, M. (2021). Application of artificial intelligence in business management, e-commerce and finance. Materials Today.