retail<\/a> sites, it found that AI-referred visitors spent 59 percent more time on retailers\u2019 websites and were 33 percent less likely to bounce. They also added products to their carts at a 28 percent higher rate.<\/p>\n\n\tThe shift is changing the way brands need to think about how consumers discover products, said Kimberly\u00a0Smith Carney, founder of the Impakt conferences focused on AI, commerce and retail, as well as chief executive officer of The Wires, a marketplace for fashion, beauty and pet brands.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re moving from a search-driven world to a discovery-driven world,\u201d Carney said.<\/p>\n
\n\tInstead of searching, scrolling and filtering through hundreds of products, consumers can increasingly describe what they are trying to accomplish, including their budget, preferences and destination, and ask an AI system to surface relevant options.<\/p>\n
\n\tFor fashion brands, that could mean competing for an AI system\u2019s recommendation as well as the customer\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe next battle won\u2019t just be for the consumer\u2019s attention. It will be for the AI\u2019s recommendation because you want AI to recommend you \u2014 but how do you get that LLM to recommend you? That\u2019s going to be key,\u201d Carcone said.<\/p>\n
\n\tThat presents new challenges for brands, Stark said, which will need to adapt their websites to ensure they can be read and understood by machines to support product recommendations.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe average U.S. retail homepage scored just 61 percent for AI readability, meaning nearly 40 percent of its content was not fully readable by large language models, according to Adobe\u2019s data. Apparel performed best among the retail categories studied, at 76 percent, followed by electronics at 70 percent.<\/p>\n
\n\tFor fashion retailers that have spent years optimizing for SEO, it means they have a good foundation for the AI era, with product taxonomies, detailed descriptions and structured information about color, fit and materials already on tap.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cFashion has been so focused and so good at being able to market and to merchandise to the human, and now it\u2019s about, \u2018How do you translate all of that information to things that are AI readable?\u2019\u201d Stark said.<\/p>\n
\n\tThat translation is becoming increasingly important as consumers use AI not just to find products, but to ask more detailed and specific questions about them. A shopper might once have searched for \u201cred summer dress.\u201d An AI assistant can handle a much more detailed request, incorporating price, materials, use, weather, location, personal preferences and other specifics into a recommendation.<\/p>\n
\n\tRetailers will need to make their product information more descriptive and structured. Apparel companies are increasingly adding metadata, clearer descriptions and more layers of information, Stark said. A dress can be described not only by its silhouette and fabric, but by whether it is suited to a party or wedding, or how it performs in everyday use or cleaning.<\/p>\n
\n\tFor luxury brands, that could also mean translating elements of brand history and craftsmanship into concrete, verifiable information that an AI system can read when answering a consumer\u2019s question. The provenance of a fabric, where it was made or how a product was constructed can become data for the LLM.<\/p>\n
\n\tThird-party information will also matter. Adobe\u2019s study noted that LLMs draw on outside sources to provide information about brands, their reputations and products, making reputable editorial coverage and reviews potentially important parts of a brand\u2019s digital footprint.<\/p>\n
\n\tCarney said brands also need to think beyond simply adding AI tools, and determine what they want the technology to accomplish for consumers rather than jumping on the bandwagon just because their competitors are.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cSimply adopting AI and using AI is not strategy,\u201d she said. \u201cThe more important question in my mind is, \u2018What are you using it to solve for the consumer?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThat also means resisting the temptation to make AI-driven personalization too narrow. If a system only recommends products based on what a consumer has previously bought or searched for, it risks eliminating the serendipity that makes fashion fun.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe goal shouldn\u2019t be to predict me perfectly. The goal should be to understand me well enough to help me discover,\u201d Carney said.<\/p>\n
\n\tFashion consumers may want recommendations that are relevant to their tastes, but they may also want to encounter a new designer, silhouette or brand that they would not have known to search for themselves.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe rise of AI could also give the in-person experience a new relevancy. Since consumers no longer need to visit a store simply to make a transaction because they can buy almost anything from their phones, a physical store \u201chas to give them a reason to show up,\u201d she said, pointing to experience, discovery, community and human connection.<\/p>\n
\n\tCarney, who previously owned a retail store for 17 years, said she believes physical and experiential retail will have a new importance as AI takes over more of the transactional and research aspects of shopping.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cFor brands and retailers, AI creates an opportunity to understand their consumers in real time,\u201d said Carney. \u201cCommerce is coming back. You can\u2019t replicate touching a product. So really discovering a brand or experiencing their world in person will become a profound experience as we continue to evolve in this AI world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tAdobe\u2019s data shows that AI-referred shoppers are still clicking through to retailers\u2019 own websites, where they can see richer imagery and video, assess products and ultimately complete their purchases. LLM-based purchasing itself remains at an early stage, Stark said.<\/p>\n
\n\tThat leaves fashion brands with the dual need to make enough information available for AI systems to understand and recommend their products, while preserving the visual, emotional and physical elements that make fashion difficult to reduce to data.<\/p>\n
\n\tFor luxury brands that challenge is particularly acute.<\/p>\n
\n\tHouses will also need to make their heritage, craftsmanship and quality easier for AI systems to understand. Information about where a material comes from, how a product is made and the history behind a collection can help AI systems answer questions about a brand and recommend its products.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cThe storytelling starts to become this AI layer,\u201d said Stark. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot that can\u2019t be communicated just in words, like where the pockets are, what\u2019s the curve of the pocket. There\u2019s just so much in fashion and it\u2019s so personal.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AI is moving from an experimental shopping tool to a reliable source of traffic for retailers, and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[755,24,25,1379],"class_list":["post-144553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-adobe","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-retail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}