How AI Is Changing E-Commerce

Forbes

02-07-2025

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. Getty Images, in partnership with global research firm MarketCast, analyzed the way that pictures communicate with people worldwide about concepts in sustainability—both for brands in marketing, as well as for people reading news and information. Getty's VisualGPS report, which combines data and insights from both images and consumer surveys, shows that these pictures and the topic of sustainability are important. Worldwide, nearly 7 in 10 people believe that climate change affects their lives.
Brands should take the importance of sustainability measures to heart and weave their commitment to the environment into their messaging—but with care. Close to 90% of consumers feel that businesses should use their resources to improve society and the environment, but two out of three doubt that companies' sustainability commitments are genuine. About three-quarters think that products and services labeled 'green' are just a marketing ploy.
Consumers want authenticity, with clear sustainability guidelines, actions and displays to show that companies' interest in the environment goes beyond just profit. And more than half want to see images that show the consequences of inaction on environmental priorities—though 78% also want to see images showing how the environment is improving because of corporate, policy-driven and personal actions.
Getty recommends that companies use imagery to authentically show what they're doing for the planet: real people, real initiatives, real consequences, and the actual communities that are impacted. While lower income and traditionally minority communities tend to be more directly impacted by climate change and pollution, many of the sustainability images seen by the general public often depict well-off white people. Brand messaging should indicate both an urgency to act on sustainability and actions people can take themselves. Sustainability also needs to be deeply integrated as a core corporate value, with products and services that highlight the environment—making it easy both for customers to make more sustainable choices, as well as clearly showing the consumer how that choice helps the planet.
While customers pay attention to what companies and brands do with their communication strategies, the rise of AI can pull their attention away from traditional browsing during e-commerce shopping. AI agents, which can take actions based on preferences 'learned' from users, could make online shopping even more targeted. I talked to Adrien Menard, CEO and cofounder of SEO and GEO platform Botify, about how AI is changing e-commerce. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.
We're taking a summer break and will not be publishing Forbes CMO next week. We'll be back on Wednesday, July 16. This is the published version of Forbes' CMO newsletter, which offers the latest news for chief marketing officers and other messaging-focused leaders. Click here to get it delivered to your inbox every Wednesday. RIGHTS + SPONSORSHIP
The racing gear Brad Pitt and Damson Idris wear in 'F1' features real companies that paid to sponsor the fictional Formula 1 team. PA Wire/PA Images
F1 , Apple's new movie about Formula 1 racing starring Brad Pitt, is more than just a summer action movie about the fast-paced sport. It's a huge sponsorship vehicle with ads that Forbes estimates potentially brought in $40 million alone. Forbes' Matt Craig zooms into the work that David Leener, the producer in charge of product placement for the film, did to bring brands into F1. For decades, brands have paid movie producers to feature their products on screen, ensuring that characters were sipping on a specific soda brand, or that a main character wore sneakers from a certain company. Ordinary product placement can cost between $250,000 to $1 million, Craig writes, but F1 is a special case. Race cars are always plastered with sponsorship ads, so there were significant opportunities for companies to get their logo in a prominent spot throughout the movie.
The movie's fictional APXGP racing team has sponsorships from more than a dozen companies, including Mercedes, IWC, Geico, EA Sports and Expensify. And while it's far too early to determine how successful the movie will be for the brands, Expensify is already seeing it pay off. The company-branded car has been in a number of music videos and appears in the EA Sports F1 video game. F1 star Damson Idris came to the Met Gala in May in the Expensify-branded car, wearing the Expensify-branded fire suit on the red carpet—causing a 400% increase in website traffic and product signups, according to CEO David Barrett. And when the F1 trailer was first released last July, CNBC's Jim Cramer touted the stock potential of Expensify, causing a record 17.7 million trades of the stock in a single day. IN THE NEWS
A Prime delivery truck. Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images
It's that time of year again: Amazon Prime Day is next week. The online mega-retailer extended its annual sale from two days to four this year—July 8 to July 11, writes Forbes senior contributor Pamela Danziger. The sale has also been moved a week earlier than last year to coincide with the day President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs take full effect: July 9.
Amazon isn't the only retailer with big sales next week. Walmart will have competing Walmart Deals events starting July 7 for Walmart+ members and July 8 for everyone else. Target is also holding a Circle Week sale from July 6 through July 12, though Target Circle 360 members will get access a day early on July 5. The sales at Walmart and Target will be available both in-store and online.
Prime Day is often a large driver of spending. Last year, all retailers saw a $14.2 billion increase in spending during the shopping event, with 60% of that being spent at Amazon. But considering customers' current cautious spending, low consumer confidence and looming tariffs, there's no guarantee that this year will be as successful, Danziger writes.
Prime Day isn't the only way Amazon is trying to beat Walmart this summer. Last week, the online retail giant announced the expansion of same-day and next-day delivery to more than 4,000 small cities, towns and rural communities. But Danziger writes the new effort still won't be able to beat Walmart. While Amazon is the leader in e-commerce, Walmart is the world's biggest physical retailer, with more than 90% of Americans living within 10 miles of a Walmart store. Walmart is easily able to deliver groceries, prescriptions and an array of merchandise from its stores to 93% of the U.S. population in three hours or less. And while Walmart's e-commerce business has grown more than 20% annually for the last two years, it still makes the majority of its revenue in physical stores—an area where Amazon cannot even come close. BRANDS + MESSAGING
Aliyah Boston of the Indiana Fever celebrates with the Commissioner Cup trophy after beating the Minnesota Lynx on Tuesday.It's important to find marketing strategies that are a good fit for the product, the message and the target audience. Tampon startup Sequel found all three, being named the official tampon sponsor for the WNBA's Indiana Fever, writes Forbes' Alexandra York. The spiral-shaped tampons, designed by Amanda Calabrese and Greta Meyer to provide better absorption and less leakage for athletes, will not only be provided to all the Fever's players, but will also be available for free in all women's restrooms at Indianapolis' Gainbridge Fieldhouse, where the team plays.
The partnership is a smart one for a variety of reasons. Women's sports are getting more popular, especially the WNBA, which saw 54 million unique viewers tuning into games last year. Forbes estimates the Indiana Fever led the WNBA in revenue and attendance in 2024—even topping attendance for the NBA's Indiana Pacers. This week, the Fever won the Commissioner's Cup at the WNBA's in-season tournament. Sequel provides a product that all women need, and showcasing its performance for elite athletes helps build brand recognition and credibility. ON MESSAGE How AI Is Shaping E-Commerce
Botify cofounder and CEO Adrien Menard. Botify
As AI search engines and agents begin to help consumers shop online, there are many unknowns about how they will shape consumer habits. Will AI remember consumers' preferences and not show them a diverse array of items—and is that really a bad thing? I talked to Adrien Menard, CEO and cofounder of retail SEO and GEO platform Botify, about what he's seeing on the front lines and what brands can do to continue to be seen by consumers. This conversation has been edited for length, clarity and continuity.
What are you seeing in terms of AI shopping assistants now?
Menard: We are seeing an increase in the traffic on websites by bots and by AI agents. We live in a world of search that [is] fragmented or decentralized, meaning that it's no longer only about Google. You have to understand what's happening on the web to capture the content, to capture the stocks, the availability, the prices, the offering of the retailer. We have the consumers, we have the bots, and we have the AI agents.
The AI agents are going to browse the web, search for information, visit websites and potentially make a decision on the behalf of the consumer or everyone. This is [in the] early stage of what it can be in a few years from now, but is a reality. And the reality is that when you're a brand, you need to take that into consideration, because those AI agents deserve the best user experience.
I think it's fascinating because it means that the value chain of the traffic acquisition of a retail company and the loyalty program that you can put in place, everything is going to be redefined because you're not going to market your solution the same way to a consumer or to an AI agent.
I love running, so let's take an example of me, the consumer, trying to find running shoes for my next marathon in Paris. Nike, Adidas, Puma, they all offer running shoes, but I don't like Adidas at all. It means that I can set up information in the AI search system, and I can tell this system to never mention anything about Adidas.
What does it mean if you are in the marketing team at Adidas? Does it mean that I should find a way to actually advertise my product to someone who does not like the brand? Or should I focus my investment on the Adidas fan? Of course, it means that I need to know who's there, how they're searching.
Do you think that personalizing shopping results to be seen by the consumer could be a bad thing?
Yes and no. It is concerning to have a system that knows everything about you. If we keep the idea of me being a runner, I'm extremely happy to know that ChatGPT may have all the information about my runner profile, my past performance, my training program, my weight, my size—everything that is going to help them to make better recommendations to what I'm going to look for. From this perspective, I'm probably going to be ready to share some information.
There is also another question behind this question. With advertising or with paid search, Google already knows a lot about you. It is the same for Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, et cetera. We are ready to accept this advertising and their knowledge of who we are because in some ways, we are the product. Those social networks, the traditional search engines, they're free to use because I am the product: I'm going to be advertised to.
That's slightly different with this new experience because for most ChatGPT users, at least now, we are paying for it—meaning that I'm already giving something. By definition, in my mind, the question of not only paying but also giving away my profile makes me think that maybe the reaction is going to be different. We could even think that ChatGPT would pay me for giving away this information. Why not?
What should brands be doing now to make sure that, as people are use AI to shop, they continue to show up?
First, understand what is happening. It means that brands need to refine their measurement framework. They need to have KPIs in every step of the AI search process. It's about the quality of the website, the indexation of the website in Google, ChatGPT, etc. It's about understanding how people search on Google and on ChatGPT, and see if there are differences. It's about measuring your share of voice when someone is searching with keywords, or with prompts related to what you can have available on the website. And, of course, it's about understanding the contribution to the revenue of those channels. This is the AI search panel, and brands need to be equipped with the right analytics for each stage.
The second step is once you know what is happening, you want to influence the AI search process, particularly the indexation and the interactions made by the AI search with your website. Before AI search systems can generate an answer, they first need to know everything about your brand. They need to know who you are, your turnover, your product, your product availability, the reviews, the prices, the marketing strategy, et cetera. To do so, they need to capture your website and put it back into their indexation or learning database. This is a process that should be optimized.
This is the very first action that needs to be taken because if the system doesn't understand who you are and what you have available on the website, they will never reuse it to generate the answer. This is even more critical when you consider that the internet is changing all the time. Prices are updated every day. Stock availability is, by definition, updated the minute something is purchased. The reviews, same thing. There are processes that can be done automatically that guarantee that your content is understood by the AI search system.
From my perspective, this is critical. This is the reality of what we have been doing with the customers, and what has impacted tremendously their visibility, traffic, and revenue impact generated by these emerging AI search systems. COMINGS + GOINGS Marketing and procurement firm HH Global appointed Matt Strawn as chief growth officer. Strawn most recently worked for Accenture as a managing director, and was key in its Accenture Song expansion.
appointed as chief growth officer. Strawn most recently worked for Accenture as a managing director, and was key in its Accenture Song expansion. Eco-friendly household products brand Seventh Generation hired Shalini Stansberry as chief marketing officer. Stansberry joins the company from Ferrero, where she worked as a VP of marketing for Kinder Snacking.
hired as chief marketing officer. Stansberry joins the company from Ferrero, where she worked as a VP of marketing for Kinder Snacking. Consumer website builder Webflow tapped Dave Steer as chief marketing officer. Steer previously worked as vice president of brand and product marketing at GitLab, and has also worked in marketing at Cloudflare, Facebook, Twitter, PayPal and eBay. STRATEGIES + ADVICE
Being a leader is more than having an executive title—it's important to also have an executive presence that is recognized by peers and subordinates. While self-confidence is an important part of this, you should think about how others see you. Here are seven questions to assess where you may need to work on strengthening your executive presence.
Customer experience is key to making sales, but seeing your interface from the outside can be a challenge. Here are some ChatGPT prompts to help you get a new perspective and optimize the customer journey. QUIZ
NASA announced it will livestream its rocket launches this summer. Which streaming provider will carry them?
A. Disney+
B. Netflix
C. HBO Max
D. Amazon Prime Video
See if you got the answer right here.