Directly off the 2024 holiday shopping season, Adobe Analytics estimates consumers spent $241.4 billion online -- up 8.7% year-over-year, with smartphones driving 54.4% of online purchases. No doubt Google and Microsoft hope AI agents will help consumers find what they need and spend even more.
One tool aimed at changing retail ecommerce comes from Google. Agentspace is a platform that helps companies build intelligent agents based on AI. This software completes tasks on behalf of users. They show reasoning, planning and memory and have a level of autonomy to make decisions that learn and adapt.
Retailers will use agents to automate tasks and personalize customer experiences by offering product recommendations, answer questions in real-time, as well as guide shoppers through purchases.
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Google Cloud enhancements to Vertex AI Search for commerce uses advanced language models to improve product discovery. Connected Stores link a shopper’s device and in-store systems to rely on an omnichannel experience.
Wayfair shared that it is using Gemini on Vertex AI to improve its product catalog. It has helped to speed product launches fivefold by automating tasks such as product tagging and categorization. It’s estimated to save the company hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, but also ensures a smoother, more accurate experience for customers.
Gemini also has helped Wayfair catch errors in product information and identified inappropriate content.
These developments -- combined with Google Cloud's advancements in image-to-video and image generation -- provide retailers with powerful tools to improve business operations and deliver exceptional customer experiences.
LiveX AI is building AI agents that provide a more personalized experience and reduce customer service costs. Standard.ai helps brick-and-mortar stores understand customer behavior and improve the in-store experience.
Google last week announced a partnership with Nvidia as retailers develop AI applications and services with the idea to boost customer engagements through Nvidia AI Enterprise software platform available on the Google Cloud Marketplace.
Microsoft had previewed two retail AI agents before NRF 2025. A Personalized Shopping Agent that is aware of the context in conversations. The agent analyzes the customer’s intent and uses AI semantic search to match the requirements gathered in the conversation. It is designed to be used by the shopper.
This app can be embedded into retail shopping websites and apps to allow consumers to interact with the AI-enabled assistant, seek suggestions and guidance to help in making an informed shopping decision. The app helps to convert the interactions into a sale.
The Store Operations Agent, a prebuilt solution in Microsoft Copilot Studio, can be built into other customer-facing interfaces such as Microsoft Teams.
Employees use this app to provide one interface that can work across multiple data sources and company policies to provide product information or help with store policies and procedures. This is provided as part of Microsoft Cloud for Retail.