In November and December of last year, over 17 percent of all Christmas orders were influenced by artificial intelligence, translating to $199 billion – according to an analysis by Salesforce based on the digital activity of 1.5 billion shoppers. These data point to a strong trend in e-commerce in 2024, which will be largely influenced by artificial intelligence on the online sales channel. What exactly awaits e-commerce in the coming months? An expert from Santander Consumer Bank answers.
By 2025, the business value generated by artificial intelligence and machine learning will amount to $4.4 trillion – indicates a report “Unlocking the power of AI” by consulting firm Deloitte. The influence of AI will be particularly noticeable in the area of e-commerce in the coming months, especially when it comes to promoting products and services. This is evidenced by the report “Content in e-commerce in 2023” by Altavia Kamikaze + K2, which reveals that over 70 percent of e-commerce companies predict that artificial intelligence will have a significant impact on content creation in the near future.
– Artificial intelligence undoubtedly strongly supports sales in the e-commerce industry – comments Patryk Perliński, Director of the Sales and Business Customer Relations Department at Santander Consumer Bank. – It allows for the delivery of more personalized shopping experiences, which responds to the current trend of adapting to individual customer preferences. At the same time, this has a positive effect on sales as market research shows that people who receive tailored offers spend more on shopping than planned. However, this is just a drop in the bucket, as applications of AI in e-commerce are much more and include customer segmentation and content optimization to make it the most attractive and intuitive for the user.
New realities on the rise
Forecasts for 2024 also include an increase in the popularity of VR and AR technology. Testing new products before purchase, organizing virtual events or interactive product presentations in the VR world are just some strategies that will be used more frequently this year. In turn, greater interest in AR implementations may result in increased sales of brands using this solution and consequently, reduce the problem of excessive returns.
– The increase in conversion rate using modern technologies is confirmed by many studies. Probably that’s why – according to IDC forecasts – their popularity is so high that spending on VR and AR in Europe is expected to grow by about 22 percent annually, reaching $8.4 billion by 2027 – adds Patryk Perliński from Santander Consumer Bank. – However, it’s worth mentioning another advantage of such solutions, which is recreating the experience of visiting a brick-and-mortar store online, which is a major challenge for the e-commerce industry.
Time to embrace chatbots
The role of chatbots in e-commerce has been discussed for several years, but it is only now, thanks to artificial intelligence, that we are experiencing the real development of this technology. Advanced chatbots, which not only answer basic, predefined questions but also provide users with precise instructions and engage in a “dialogue” with them, are increasingly being used. These bots are referred to as virtual assistants. According to market forecasts, we will be dealing with them more and more often in the future. As indicated by Gartner, by 2027, chatbots will become the main customer service channel for about a quarter of organizations. Considering all this, there’s no doubt that 2024 and the following years in e-commerce will be heavily influenced by artificial intelligence.
