AI Shopping Assistants Move From Experiment to Infrastructure
AI shopping assistants are conversational systems that help people find, compare, and buy products online by using natural language, store data, and automated decision-making to drive more relevant and efficient shopping experiences across web and mobile commerce. They are evolving into agentic commerce technology that can act on behalf of customers and retailers, not only answering questions but also orchestrating search, recommendations, and merchandising behind the scenes. This shift is reshaping retail AI integration: instead of scattered chatbots, brands now want end-to-end assistants that connect product discovery, e-commerce personalization, and checkout. Amazon’s success with Alexa for Shopping, together with new tools from platforms like Shopify, is pushing the market toward AI agents as a standard layer in the e-commerce stack. For retailers, the question is no longer whether to adopt assistants, but how deeply to integrate them.
Amazon Turns Alexa’s Commerce Engine Into a Service
Amazon Web Services has released the AWS Agentic Shopping Assistant, a white-label AI shopping assistant that retailers can embed into their own sites and apps. The product runs on the same technology that powers Alexa for Shopping on Amazon’s marketplace, which the company says drove nearly USD 12 billion (approx. RM55.2 billion) in incremental sales last year. Retailers can configure assistants that speak in their brand voice, answer product questions, and recommend items based on their own catalog and rules, with AWS claiming deployments can go live in about 60 days. One early adopter is Kate Spade, whose parent company Tapestry launched an AI gift concierge using the tool. According to Accenture, more than 30% of online commerce could flow through AI agents by 2030, representing about USD 3.1 trillion (approx. RM14.28 trillion) in transactions, underlining why Amazon is opening its commerce engine to others.
Nosto and Shopify Bring Agentic Commerce Inside the Back Office
While Amazon focuses on shopper-facing assistants, Nosto is targeting the commerce teams behind the scenes through Shopify AI tools. Its new native workflows plug Nosto’s Commerce Experience Platform directly into Shopify’s Sidekick assistant, allowing merchandisers to adjust product discovery and e-commerce personalization with conversational instructions inside the Shopify admin. During a live demo at the OMR Festival, Ford’s ecommerce partner Autonative used Sidekick prompts to change the design of Nosto-powered product recommendations on its accessories store without switching platforms or involving developers. Nosto calls this a way to “collapse the distance between action and performance,” reducing the operational bottleneck created by limited developer time. The company is also building out Huginn, its AI agent, to power wider agentic workflows such as documentation help, proactive merchandising insights, and eventually automated execution through its Huginn Connect early access program.
Kmart’s Joy Shows How AI Assistants Change the Shopper Journey
On the consumer side, Kmart is reimagining its online store around Joy, an AI shopping assistant that blends conversation with immersive tools. Joy supports virtual try-on to show how selected products might look on a person, and a “See It in My Space” feature that lets shoppers view furniture and other items in their own homes before buying. Available on the website and app, Joy acts as a virtual partner: customers can narrow results by size, style, color, and budget, upload photos for tailored recommendations, and compare items side by side. The assistant spans Kmart’s full marketplace, including Target and other local and global brands. Powered by Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience, Joy is part of a wider agentic solution that can support customers from discovery through post-purchase resolution, reflecting Kmart’s view that shoppers now want ideas and guidance instead of basic keyword search.
Why Agentic AI Is Becoming Table Stakes in E-Commerce
Taken together, Amazon’s AWS Agentic Shopping Assistant, Nosto’s Sidekick-integrated workflows, and Kmart’s Joy signal a turning point in retail AI integration. Alexa for Shopping’s USD 12 billion (approx. RM55.2 billion) in incremental revenue shows that AI shopping assistants can materially shift where and how customers spend, while Accenture’s projection of AI agents handling over 30% of online commerce by 2030 suggests the behavior will spread beyond a single platform. Retailers that delay risk losing share to ecosystems where agents manage search, recommendations, and service as a unified journey. Agentic commerce technology is also reshaping internal operations by cutting dependence on developers and accelerating merchandising changes. AI shopping assistants are becoming critical infrastructure for e-commerce personalization and conversion, not optional add-ons. The emerging competitive edge is how well a retailer’s AI understands context, acts across channels, and respects brand and data control.