Ecommerce seems to be to be going through one thing of a sea change going into 2026. Generative AI has upended discovery, probably to the purpose of taking on the procuring journey completely – relying on how bullish you might be on agentic commerce – and is reshaping the client expertise.
Past this, manufacturers and retailers are going through different issues within the type of financial uncertainty and client spending cutbacks, which pile on the strain to ship amidst squeezed budgets. What abilities can be very important for fulfillment? How are manufacturers doing extra with much less? And what developments ought to they ignore – and prioritise?
Following on from our take a look at the affect of GenAI and agentic on the client expertise, we turned once more to a roster of ecommerce and retail media specialists to search out out what they suppose.
With due to:
- Denise Cornelissen, Head of Product Advertising and marketing at RTB Home
- James Taylor, CEO and Founder at Explicit Viewers
- Suzanna Chaplin, CEO and Founder at esbconnect
- Rose Eager, Content material and Perception Director at Econsultancy and creator of Econsultancy’s Ecommerce Traits Quarterly report sequence
- Paul Dahill, Managing Director, Gross sales EMEA at Koddi
- Richard Robinson, Govt Director at Ingenuity+
- Larraine Criss, Chief Working Officer at Preciso
- Andrew Norman, SVP & GM, EMEA at Commerce
What’s the elephant within the room in the intervening time on this planet of ecommerce?
Outdated strategies to focus on customers now not work
Denise Cornelissen, Head of Product Advertising and marketing, RTB Home:
The buyer path to buy is getting more and more advanced. Manufacturers can now not depend on outdated techniques in the event that they need to enchantment to their goal audiences. As a substitute, they should look to new applied sciences that assist them utilise the info they’ve to make sure efficient concentrating on.
The one instrument that may course of the huge quantity of information wanted to feed campaigns on this manner is AI, nevertheless it’s a black field, and requires entrepreneurs to let go of a little bit of management. In conventional advertising and marketing, we’ve been in a position to outline personas, however AI goes additional, detecting insights on a way more granular, user-by-user foundation.
If entrepreneurs are prepared to make use of it, [AI] can make clear whether or not somebody must be focused by an advert and the chance of their conversion. Its capability to recognise hidden patterns and make exact choices based mostly on person intent, all in a millionth of a heartbeat, can guarantee campaigns stay related whereas growing ROAS.
Manufacturers can now not depend on outdated techniques in the event that they need to enchantment to their goal audiences.
…The hyper-personalised nature of AI, significantly deep studying, will come into its personal in 2026, changing the massive information swimming pools manufacturers have into structured insights that may be utilized to particular person customers.
This may be layered on prime of machine learning-based options to drive outcomes from advanced, multi-touch journeys. This ensures that manufacturers attain non-obvious converters that others might miss.
AI and retail media
James Taylor, CEO and Founder, Explicit Viewers:
There are two elephants within the room (a bit cramped!). One is AI, and the opposite is retail media. Will or received’t AI change on-line procuring? Will or received’t retail media combine with natural relevance?
AI is a rising channel, however not essentially an incremental one. Retailers must put money into enabling this behaviour shift with applied sciences like retail Mannequin Context Protocol (MCP) for agentic interoperability and Adaptive Transformer Search in an effort to meet prospects the place they’re with the rise of conversational queries in conventional search bars.
Retail media is incremental, however it’s presently siloed from the remainder of the retail expertise. Deeper, vertical integration with the identical algorithms that energy your expertise throughout the retailing net is what is required to develop retail media in a manner that’s accretive, not damaging, to the client expertise.
Margins and the strain to ship
Suzanna Chaplin, CEO and Founder, esbconnect:
The elephant within the room in the intervening time is margins.
They’re being squeezed and everybody is aware of the story and understands the options ({discount} much less, don’t deal with bottom-of-funnel solely, put money into neighborhood and model constructing) however the even greater elephant is income – the strain to ship is combating towards the margins.
Shopper sentiment and the concern of a US recession
Rose Eager, Content material & Perception Director, Econsultancy:
Shopper sentiment and concern of recession within the US. That’s broader than simply ecommerce nevertheless it is among the main drivers of the spending patterns we’ve seen throughout this 12 months – and it’ll proceed to play out in Christmas buying.
The standard hole in onsite expertise
Paul Dahill, Managing Director, Gross sales EMEA, Koddi:
Most retailers have fallen behind the expectations of contemporary consumers. AI isn’t the true risk, the standard hole in onsite expertise is.
Search is weak, navigation is clunky, personalisation is inconsistent, and product information is messy. In the meantime, Google Purchasing, TikTok and Amazon have raised the bar for what “good” seems to be like. AI is just revealing these weaknesses quicker and with much less mercy.
How are budgets altering, particularly with each entrepreneurs and customers feeling the squeeze economically?
A ‘show it or lose it’ 12 months
Richard Robinson, Govt Director, Ingenuity+:
It’s a ‘show it or lose it’ 12 months. Regardless of WARC and the Promoting Affiliation predicting an increase from £46bn to £49bn in spend, we’ll see CMOs funnelling spend into efficiency, automation, and first-party information something that shrinks CAC or grows LTV. All the things else can be possible lower or consolidated.
Paul Dahill, Koddi:
Budgets are shifting towards efficiency, predictability and profitability. Retailers and types are reducing something that doesn’t show measurable worth quick.
Spend is transferring towards channels that may present incremental affect and towards know-how that reduces value to serve. The squeeze is actual, nevertheless it’s accelerating a more healthy self-discipline throughout the trade.
Retailers and types are reducing something that doesn’t show measurable worth quick.
Manufacturers are counting on channels they really feel can ship
Larraine Criss, COO, Preciso:
Manufacturers are investing extra money into the channels they see delivering outcomes. Two examples spring to thoughts.
The primary is retail media. Manufacturers prefer it as a result of it’s so near the purpose of buy, and so they can use the consented transactional information [the networks] have on their prospects to focus on them very exactly and successfully. It’s affected by some rising pains, most notably fragmentation, however these can be ironed out, and it’ll show to be an essential channel for a few years to come back.
The second is Related TV (CTV). With fragmented audiences and fewer marquee programmes that may entice viewers within the big numbers of 20 years in the past, CTV is a spot the place advertisers can discover hard-to-reach audiences with revolutionary, interactive advert codecs that create actual engagement with customers.
‘Much less is extra’ when investments must work tougher
Denise Cornelissen, RTB Home:
Budgets have been in fixed flux in 2025. As such, entrepreneurs have wanted their investments to work tougher. I’d anticipate we’ll see this proceed as we enter 2026.
On the identical time, customers are being cautious with their spending, as seen by the decline in buying through the Black Friday gross sales. As well as, advertisers are telling us they, too, have pulled again from this promotional occasion this 12 months and, extra usually, from big-discount flash gross sales. Whereas many will nonetheless take part, the construction, depth and nature of promotions appear to be evolving.
Modifications in how budgets are getting used don’t essentially should affect advertising and marketing effectiveness, although. As a substitute, entrepreneurs should be extra strategic. Harnessing AI-powered instruments, for instance, can drive efficiencies and maximise ROI. That is significantly essential as customers turn into more and more troublesome to achieve.
However the reply actually is much less is extra – use fewer, smarter instruments in unison to make sure the best audiences are focused at when they’re in the best mindset.
What abilities are most in-demand – and which do you discover are more than likely to be lacking?
The flexibility to translate AI capabilities into enterprise outcomes
Paul Dahill, Koddi:
Groups want structured problem-solving, information fluency and AI fluency greater than ever. The lacking talent is the flexibility to translate AI capabilities into workflow adjustments and enterprise outcomes.
There’s no scarcity of people that know AI terminology. What’s lacking are operators and leaders who can redesign processes, choices and metrics round an AI-driven future.
Larraine Criss, Preciso:
The abilities that can be most in demand are these that may harness the facility of AI and information it intelligently to ship the perfect outcomes for each the advertiser and the patron.
AI is nice at automating and making sense of huge quantities of information; much less good on the subject of instinct, creativity and nuance. Individuals with the abilities to information AI methods most successfully can be in nice demand. Sadly, for the second, I feel they’re additionally those more than likely to be lacking.
‘Evolving’ and ‘evergreen’ abilities
Rose Eager, Econsultancy:
At Econsultancy we like to speak about evolving and evergreen abilities. Evergreen abilities are these which are foundational, like strategic pondering, creativity and buyer understanding.
Evolving abilities are those that change in step with the tech, media and buyer panorama. We see gaps throughout each, but when I used to be to create a precedence listing it might be – essential pondering, AI understanding and data-driven determination making. All of that are necessities to be efficient in ecommerce and to drive development.
Artistic abilities
Suzanna Chaplin, esbconnect:
I feel the abilities most in demand can be round artistic – while you can have a great deal of variations outputted, I feel the abilities in utilizing these methods are nonetheless with the few, not the numerous.
What’s the one development you want everybody would cease speaking about?
AI picture creators – they’re simply not there
Suzanna Chaplin, esbconnect:
The one development I want everybody would cease speaking about is AI picture creators. They’re a key focus, however in the intervening time, they aren’t there but for the lots. If you’d like proof, take a look at all of the AI-generated photos of individuals with six fingers.
The attain and dominance of walled gardens
Larraine Criss, Preciso:
I want everybody would cease speaking concerning the attain and the dominance of the walled gardens. Their energy is evaporating as buyer acquisition prices rise and sign power diminishes.
Whereas few folks would advocate abandoning the walled gardens fully, I wish to see organisations actually deal with and decide to increasing their use of the open net … [It] can ship most of the new prospects the walled gardens can, typically at a decrease value, and with a higher diploma of transparency to allow advertisers to check totally different creatives and optimise in the direction of the best-performing.
…and the place ought to organisations focus their efforts subsequent 12 months?
Readability, construction, and pace
Paul Dahill, Koddi:
We have to cease pretending AI goes to interchange each step of the procuring journey. It distracts from the true work. The precedence must be modernising onsite infrastructure and product information.
In case your web site is gradual, your taxonomy is damaged, or your content material is outdated, AI can’t prevent. In 2026, retailers win by way of readability, construction and pace.
Creating a very personalised buyer expertise
Andrew Norman, SVP & GM, EMEA, Commerce:
Tapping into AI information insights will allow retailers to supply extra genuine suggestions and create procuring experiences that really feel extremely private for 2026. For the trendy client, time is of the essence, and AI-powered checkout methods may even be key to growing the chance of conversions to gross sales.
Loyalty programmes are additionally on the rise, with 71% of gen Zs and 72% of millennials saying they’re extra prone to be a part of a loyalty programme now than they have been a 12 months in the past. This creates nice alternatives for retailers to show one-time consumers into loyal prospects.
However conventional punch playing cards and primary factors methods received’t lower it anymore. Profitable loyalty programmes should be omnichannel, simply accessible on-line and in-store, and provide personalised perks corresponding to early entry, unique product enter, and tailor-made reductions, motivating prospects to enrol and purchase many times.
A modernised strategy to buyer relationships
James Taylor, Explicit Viewers:
Many on-line retailers are lacking a trick. Conventional loyalty programmes have enabled the retailer to amass useful, granular transactional information on their prospects, and that is what has fuelled a lot of the retail media revolution.
Nonetheless, the obsession with audiences and segments really results in a poor buyer expertise, lacking alternatives to seize real-time intent, cross-sell and up-sell as trendy machine studying and AI search applied sciences now allow.
Mindsets caught in legacy key phrase and segment-based promoting, and guide merchandising must modernise to remain present. For advertisers and retailers, studying about how the exhausting tech works pays dividends in 2026.
A return to conventional codecs?
Suzanna Chaplin, esbconnect:
My outrageous prediction is that digital detox goes to be actual – customers will turn into fed up with noise and AI content material, and I feel we might even see an increase in old-school channels and codecs.
