Download: How to think about AI search – a strategic guide for retail & ecommerce

What's inside?

Usage of AI assistants is growing among existing adopters, and there are already established AI-search behaviours.

For retailers, the strategic question is how and where this discovery and consideration is happening before a shopper reaches a website - and what information and brand signals the assistant encounters along the way.

This is a picture that is changing frequently. AI-search performance varies significantly by platform and by category. There is no single retail leaderboard and no universal optimisation recipe. A marketplace, a fashion brand, a grocery retailer and an electronics specialist face different query patterns, trust signals and degrees of agentic disruption.

In this report, we break down:

• Discoverability vs. desirability

• The role of PDPs, PLPs and website architecture

• A discussion of llms.txt

• How architecture connects the catalogue to the brand

• Accessibility and agent-friendliness

• Where to start and what tools to use

• Addendum: AI search as gateway to agentic commerce