On a busy evening in Mumbai, a young professional settles into a cafe and opens a chat on her phone. Instead of scrolling through endless product pages, she simply asks an AI assistant for the perfect gift for her mother’s birthday, AI Marketing is now shaping the mindset. The chatbot powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, responds like a personal shopper, suggesting a curated list of products complete with prices, reviews, and even a “Buy Now” button. With one tap, the purchase is completed without ever leaving the chat. This seamless experience is no longer science fiction. It’s on the cusp of reality, thanks to a new partnership brewing between OpenAI and Shopify that’s poised to revolutionize how Indians shop, and how businesses market their products.
AI Marketing Assistants Step Into Shopping
AI tools like ChatGPT are rapidly evolving from simple question-answering bots into full-fledged product and service recommenders. OpenAI is reportedly integrating Shopify’s e-commerce platform directly into ChatGPT, enabling the chatbot to browse, compare, and purchase products within the conversation. In practical terms, this means when a user asks, “What are the best trail running shoes?”, ChatGPT could soon present a tailored selection of sneakers – along with prices, customer ratings, shipping info, and a button to buy on the spot. No more shuffling through multiple websites or copying coupon codes; the entire journey from discovery to checkout could happen inside one chat window.
For Shopify and its vast network of merchants, the implications are huge. Shopify powers millions of small and mid-sized online stores, including many run by Indian entrepreneurs. Today, these sellers hustle for traffic investing in SEO, paid ads, and praying for social media virality to bring customers. But with ChatGPT acting as a shopping concierge, their products could surface directly to ChatGPT’s massive user base (over 800 million monthly users by some estimates). “The AI assistant becomes a retail clerk and a review compiler,” notes a TechRadar report, describing how ChatGPT may soon function like a virtual storefront that puts products in front of users without any extra effort from merchants. In other words, a D2C (direct-to-consumer) brand in Bengaluru using Shopify might suddenly find its best-selling saree being recommended in ChatGPT’s responses to a user in Delhi asking for gift ideas – a level of organic reach previously unimaginable.
The convenience for consumers is equally compelling. Instead of bouncing between apps and websites reading reviews on one site, checking prices on another, then fumbling through checkout everything happens in one continuous chat. “The entire journey from discovery to checkout – happens in one place,” Moneycontrol reports, highlighting that ChatGPT won’t just help you decide what to buy, “it may end up helping you buy it”. By eliminating clicks and page loads, the process becomes frictionless. In fact, early analyses suggest that removing these small hurdles can significantly boost sales, potentially cutting down cart abandonment rates by up to 30%. An AI assistant that not only recommends a jacket but also lets you purchase it right then and there could turn casual browsing into impulse buys – or conversely, help indecisive shoppers finally complete a purchase with confidence.
The Rise of ‘Agentic Commerce’
This new paradigm is part of a broader trend that industry leaders are calling “agentic commerce”, commerce driven by AI agents that not only inform your choices, but also act on your behalf. In the context of shopping, an agentic AI doesn’t stop at saying “I recommend this product,” it goes further to facilitate the transaction. “The idea that AI can guide you not just to information, but through decision-making and transactions, is referred to as agentic commerce,” TechRadar explains, and it is quickly becoming a major competitive space for AI developers.
OpenAI’s integration with Shopify exemplifies this shift. By turning ChatGPT into an agent that can execute a purchase, they are compressing the consumer journey from a multi-step ordeal into a single conversation. The chatbot can handle product discovery (suggesting items), evaluation (providing descriptions or even summarizing reviews), and finally the purchase (processing payments via Shopify’s checkout) all in one thread. In essence, ChatGPT moves from being an advisor to an actor – it doesn’t just tell you which running shoes are great; it can sell you those shoes in real time.
The concept of agentic commerce represents a fundamental shift in consumer behavior. Shoppers may soon rely on AI agents to do the legwork of searching, vetting, and transacting. This could lead to a future where brand loyalty is partly transferred to AI loyalty, i.e., consumers might develop trust in their preferred AI assistant to always find them the “best deal” or the “right product.” It also raises questions about how choices are presented: will the AI show an unbiased selection of products, or will there be paid placements and algorithmic favoritism? Keeping the process transparent and user-centric will be critical to sustaining trust as AI agents take on a bigger role in commerce.
Notably, the push toward agentic commerce isn’t coming out of thin air, it aligns with a wave of AI research and experiments. OpenAI itself has been testing “Operator”, an experimental agent that can already book flights and place grocery orders for ChatGPT Pro users in pilot programs. In one leaked memo earlier this month, Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke urged his team to “hire an AI before you hire a human,” underscoring the company’s all-in drive to embed AI across their platform. Shopify sees AI agents as the next evolution of online retail, where autonomous or semi-autonomous assistants handle more of the shopping experience on both the consumer and merchant side. By embracing agentic commerce, Shopify hopes to make it easier for even the smallest merchant to plug into a network of AI-driven sales.
Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase (a company far from traditional retail), captured the broader sentiment in a recent post, saying “Agentic commerce is going to be a big deal this year” and predicting a surge in AI-driven shopping bots across industries. His comment reflects how pervasive the concept has become, even crypto and fintech platforms are exploring how to enable AI agents to complete purchases (in Coinbase’s case, using crypto wallets for payments). The takeaway: from retail platforms to fintech, there’s a collective recognition that AI agents capable of action are the next big frontier in digital commerce.
I Love My Polish Creative Head Aastha V. shared, “The availability of AI-driven features such as writing smart product descriptions, enhancing backdrops without having to switch apps, and using Shopify Chat, which has an AI Agent that can be deployed to answer basic queries and trained with FAQs, has led to the empowerment of small business owners in a short span of time.“
A New Journey for Consumers
For consumers, especially in India, the rise of AI marketing and shopping assistants could dramatically simplify the path to purchase. Traditionally, an online shopper’s journey might involve search engines, marketplaces, price comparison sites, and then checkout forms. With agentic AI, that journey condenses into a conversation. You might chat with an AI like you would with a knowledgeable store clerk: “I’m looking for a college laptop under ₹50,000” and the assistant can ask clarifying questions, show you a few options within your budget, answer follow-ups (“Does this model support gaming?”), and then finalize the order right in chat if you choose one.
This conversational flow is more natural and intuitive, particularly for users who are less tech-savvy. In India, where hundreds of millions of new internet users have come online in recent years, the ability to interact in plain English or even local languages with an AI guide can make e-commerce far more accessible. “Chatbots can access and retain almost limitless information, [so] they can create a highly personalized customer experience,” notes a Times of India overview of ChatGPT’s impact on e-commerce. Unlike static website filters, an AI can recall your preferences mentioned earlier in the chat (or even in past interactions) and adjust recommendations on the fly. If you earlier noted a preference for eco-friendly materials, the assistant might highlight, “This sneaker is made from recycled fibers,” aligning the suggestion with your values.
Crucially, personalization is set to reach new heights. E-commerce platforms have long used AI behind the scenes for product recommendations (“Recommended for you” sections based on your browsing history), but now that intelligence is moving to the foreground. ChatGPT can tailor its suggestions using the context of your conversation – for instance, if you mention it’s a gift for a 5-year-old, it will narrow results to age-appropriate items. “ChatGPT can be trained to help customers find the right products for them,” writes one commentator, adding that by harnessing AI models on browsing and purchase history, businesses can deliver powerful product recommendations that drive sales and satisfaction. In effect, every user gets the equivalent of a highly attentive sales assistant who knows their tastes and needs.
For Indian consumers, especially, this could bridge gaps in the current online shopping experience. Language and literacy barriers can be reduced if AI assistants support queries in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, or other local languages. (Flipkart’s Flippi bot, for instance, launched in English but plans to add Hindi and more languages with voice support, aiming to serve a broader range of Indian shoppers. Digital inclusion may improve, as people who find traditional interfaces daunting might prefer asking an AI directly. Imagine a first-time internet user in a small town simply speaking to their phone: “Mujhe Diwali ke liye kurta chahiye” (“I need a kurta for Diwali”), and getting a personalized recommendation in Hindi, with the option to buy instantly. That kind of user-friendly experience can bring new demographics into the e-commerce fold.
It’s no wonder that consumer enthusiasm for AI is high. A recent Boston Consulting Group survey found that 75% of people globally have used ChatGPT or a similar AI tool, with usage in India outpacing many mature markets. In countries like India and the UAE, people are more likely to use ChatGPT “to find information, assist in research, and even as a personal assistant,” whereas respondents in the US or UK were more often “just playing around”. This indicates that Indian consumers are primed to use AI in practical ways, shopping included. As these users get comfortable relying on AI for recommendations, the trust and frequency of use in commerce will naturally grow.
Indian Businesses Plug Into AI-Powered Marketing
The integration of AI-driven suggestions is opening new opportunities for Indian businesses and entrepreneurs, particularly small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and D2C brands. India’s e-commerce boom has been fueled not just by giants like Amazon and Flipkart, but by thousands of independent sellers and homegrown brands often hosted on platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, or social media. For these players, AI shopping assistants can be a great equalizer.
If ChatGPT’s shopping feature rolls out, a Shopify seller in India automatically gains a foothold in a global AI marketplace. They don’t need to develop their own chatbot from scratch or pour money into expensive recommendation engines, the AI infrastructure is provided by the likes of OpenAI, and their products become discoverable through intelligent dialogue. “Over 4.6 million Shopify stores gain exposure to ChatGPT’s ~1 billion users instantly expanding reach,” notes one analysis, emphasizing the new revenue channel such an integration could unlock. For an Indian artisanal crafts seller, for example, this could mean someone asking ChatGPT for “handmade gifts from India” might directly see their products featured, whereas before the merchant’s reach might have been limited to niche marketplaces or Instagram followers.
Local businesses are already experimenting with AI-assisted commerce in various forms. Flipkart, India’s homegrown e-commerce leader, launched an AI chatbot named “Flippi” in October 2023 as a built-in shopping assistant on its app. Powered by a version of ChatGPT, Flippi is “targeted at helping buyers who find it challenging to make a decision”, acting as an expert guide to recommend the product that best suits a user’s needs. Flipkart introduced this ahead of the festive season sales, indicating the strategic value placed on AI to drive conversions during critical shopping periods. Users can chat with Flippi (by swiping left on the Flipkart app home screen) to get advice, while a new video browsing feature called Vibes caters to those who prefer a visual window-shopping experience. The early rollout is in English, but Flipkart has stated plans to support multiple Indian languages and even voice input to make Flippi accessible to more customers.
Feedback on such initiatives suggests that AI can indeed boost engagement and sales. By simplifying decision-making for customers, Flippi and similar assistants can reduce drop-offs from analysis paralysis (when a shopper is overwhelmed by options). Flipkart’s statement at launch highlighted its aim to “offer personalised and simplified user experience” through these features, In practice, this means an unsure customer asking “Which phone has the best camera under ₹20,000?” might get a clear, conversational answer from Flippi, complete with product suggestions and explainer snippets potentially making the user more confident to hit “buy” than if they were left to compare spec sheets alone.
Beyond big e-commerce platforms, many Indian SMEs are tapping AI for marketing and customer service. On WhatsApp (a crucial commerce channel in India), startup providers now offer AI chatbots that handle customer queries and recommend products for small businesses. Companies like Gupshup have launched specialized AI agents for retail and D2C brands, aiming to “supercharge customer engagement” through instant query resolution and guided selling via chat. These bots can answer questions like “Do you have this dress in size M?”, suggest related items, or even initiate a sale by sharing a payment link – all within a messaging app. The trend indicates that conversational commerce is rising in India, and generative AI is turbocharging it with more intelligence and personalization than the scripted chatbots of old.
For marketers, this means a significant shift in strategy. The marketing funnel is turning into a dialogue. Brands will need to “train” AI assistants with their product info, FAQs, and selling points to ensure the bots represent them well. It’s a bit like the new SEO: instead of optimizing for Google’s algorithms alone, companies will optimize for AI recommendation engines. Shopify’s approach, for instance, would likely allow merchants to feed their product catalog and key details into the system. Microsoft hints the same – it invites sellers to “share key product specifications” when they join its AI commerce program, “ensuring we have up-to-date details on all your items, so that they are suggested to customers properly.” In short, accuracy and richness of data become part of marketing. If your product descriptions and specs are thorough, the AI can more confidently recommend you for relevant queries. If not, you might be overlooked by the algorithmic assistant much like you’d be buried in Google search results.
Big Tech Joins the Race
OpenAI and Shopify aren’t alone in betting on AI-driven shopping. Global tech companies are racing to build their own AI shopping copilots, foreshadowing a new era of competition in the marketing and e-commerce landscape.
In fact, just this week Microsoft unveiled a Copilot Merchant Program to integrate retailers into its AI assistant ecosystem. Announced on April 18, 2025, the program opens an in-chat storefront in Microsoft’s Copilot (the AI that powers Bing Chat and Windows experiences) for eligible sellers. “With Copilot, customers have a personal shopper at their service,” Microsoft says, highlighting features like price alerts, instant suggestions on similar products, and even checkout directly within the Copilot app. Essentially, Microsoft’s vast user base on Windows and Bing could soon be discovering products via chat prompts, much like the ChatGPT-Shopify model. Merchants who sign up can gain visibility, acquire customers, and generate sales from a centralized AI-powered platform, the company promises. Microsoft even encourages brands to share their product data to help the AI suggest their items more accurately to users. This mirrors how search engine marketing works (feeding data for rich results), but now the interface is an AI chat that can directly convert interest into a sale.
Another player, Perplexity.ai, which built a popular AI answer engine, rolled out a feature called “Buy with Pro” in late 2024. With one click, Perplexity’s AI can take a user from a query to a purchase, thanks to an integrated merchant API. This was a notable step because Perplexity isn’t a shopping site at heart, it’s more of a Q&A search engine. Yet, it recognized the opportunity in catching users at the moment of intent. For example, if you ask Perplexity “What’s the best budget smartwatch?” and it presents a clear answer, it can now also show a buy option for a recommended watch via partner merchants. By opening its own merchant API, Perplexity signaled that even smaller AI startups want in on e-commerce, likely via affiliate partnerships or direct integration with retailers.
Meanwhile, we see glimpses of similar ambitions in other corners of Big Tech. Google, for instance, has been infusing its search results with AI through the Search Generative Experience (SGE), where some shopping queries return AI-generated summaries of products and links to buy. One can imagine Google’s Bard assistant eventually tying into Google Shopping or third-party carts to enable conversational purchases. Amazon, the e-commerce titan, has long used AI for recommendations on its site (“Customers who bought X also bought Y”), and it’s experimenting with more conversational shopping via Alexa and its own AI models. Amazon recently introduced generative AI tools for sellers, to auto-generate product descriptions and improve listings, which hints at a future where Amazon’s shopping assistant might automatically chat with you to refine what you’re looking for and update product info on the fly.
All these efforts point to a common conclusion: the lines between marketing, search, and shopping are blurring. AI-driven suggestions mean that the moment of discovery and the moment of purchase can coalesce. For companies, being part of that AI-driven discovery is becoming as crucial as having a social media presence or a good Google ranking. And for the tech firms building these AI agents, attracting merchants and perfecting the user experience has become a high-stakes race. Each wants to be the go-to AI assistant consumers trust for shopping, because with that trust comes influence over purchasing decisions – the holy grail of marketing.
Convenience, Competition, and Challenges
The societal impact of AI-guided shopping will be significant, with clear pros as well as new challenges. On the positive side, convenience is king. Having an ever-available, knowledgeable assistant to handle your shopping means less time spent on mundane tasks. Busy professionals, or anyone who dreads navigating dozens of sites for the best deal, can offload that work to AI. This could lead to increased e-commerce adoption among demographics that value ease-of-use – for instance, senior citizens or rural customers who may find complex apps intimidating but can simply tell an AI what they need. As noted, bringing more language support and even voice will only amplify this digital inclusion in a linguistically diverse country like India.
There’s also an element of empowerment for smaller brands. If ChatGPT or Copilot presents options based on merit (quality, fit for query) rather than just brand recognition, a niche Indian brand can appear alongside global big names in a recommendation list. This levels the playing field in a way traditional advertising cannot. A user asking for “organic skincare products” might get a mix of results that include a well-known multinational and a local Indian herbal brand, if both have good reviews and match the user’s needs. In this sense, AI suggestions could introduce consumers to products they wouldn’t have found otherwise, boosting competition and consumer choice.
However, these benefits come with new competition dynamics and data dilemmas. Marketers may find themselves asking: How do we ensure our product is the one the AI recommends? It’s a bit like the scramble for Google’s first page all over again, but the mechanisms are less transparent. There’s a risk that pay-to-play could influence AI suggestions, unless platforms enforce strict church-and-state separation between organic answers and sponsored content. If an AI agent consistently recommends one brand (without disclosing sponsorship) because that brand struck a deal with the platform, it could mislead consumers and undermine trust. Transparency in how recommendations are generated, are they purely based on user query relevance, ratings, etc., or is there an advertisement aspect – will be crucial. Regulators might eventually step in to ensure that AI-driven commerce doesn’t become a biased gatekeeper.
Data privacy is another serious concern. To handle in-chat purchases, these AI systems will be dealing with sensitive personal data: addresses, credit card details, and purchase history. Ensuring that this information is handled securely and with user consent is non-negotiable. Cybersecurity will need to adapt to protect users in this new context, the last thing anyone wants is a breach that exposes thousands of chat transcripts containing financial info. Moreover, there’s the question of how conversational data is used. If a user tells ChatGPT their clothing size and favorite style in a chat, that data could be gold for marketers. But using it responsibly – and not violating privacy expectations – will require careful policy. Platforms may need to allow users to opt out of having their chat data used for targeted marketing, even as they enjoy personalized suggestions.
From a societal lens, one should also consider consumer behavior shifts. With AI handling the heavy lifting, shopping could become more impulsive. The classic “cooling-off” period one might have while moving from a shopping cart to a checkout page shrinks when the AI can complete orders instantly. Will this lead to more buyer’s remorse? Or will the improved guidance mean people actually buy more suitable products and return less? Early indications are hopeful on some fronts – a well-designed AI assistant could reduce returns by helping customers pick the right item the first time (for example, ensuring the sizing or specs match the user’s request), improving overall satisfaction. But it could also encourage extra spending (suggesting a matching accessory to go with that shirt, which you might add because it’s just one more quick yes away – the classic upsell, now supercharged).
Competition among businesses might intensify as well. If every company has an AI channel, then being the best in the AI’s eyes (or algorithms) becomes a new battleground. This might spur companies to improve their products and customer feedback (since presumably, AI will take into account reviews and ratings to recommend), which is a plus. Yet, it could also lead to new forms of marketing manipulation – trying to “game” the AI through fake reviews or by feeding it exaggerated data. Platforms will have to guard against such manipulation to keep the ecosystem fair and useful.
The Future of Marketing Jobs
As AI-driven suggestions weave themselves into the fabric of commerce, the role of human marketers is undoubtedly set to change. There’s both excitement and anxiety in the air on this front. Will AI agents take over marketing jobs? The answer appears to be that they will take over certain tasks, but not the entire function of marketing.
OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman recently suggested that in the long run, AI could handle “95% of what marketers…use agencies, strategists, and creative professionals for today.” This bold claim, coming from a new book of interviews with AI leaders, implies that many routine marketing tasks are ripe for automation. Content generation, basic strategy formulation, ad targeting, even optimization of campaigns, all these could be done faster (and perhaps better) by AI as it grows more sophisticated. In the context of e-commerce, imagine AI handling the creation of product ads, writing personalized email campaigns for each customer, setting and adjusting ad bids in real-time, and of course, serving as the point-of-sale recommender as we’ve discussed. It’s a future where the heavy lifting of execution is largely machine-run.
However, this doesn’t mean the end of marketing jobs. Historically, when technology automates certain roles, new roles emerge. Marketers will likely transition to overseeing AI and focusing on higher-level strategy and creativity that AI can’t easily replicate. For example, a marketing manager in an Indian retail brand might spend less time crunching campaign data (the AI can do that) and more time crafting the brand story or dreaming up experiential campaigns that make the brand resonate emotionally – tasks that benefit from human insight. AI will complement and enhance the work of marketers, not entirely replace it
We’re already seeing job titles like “AI Marketing Strategist” or “Prompt Engineer” appear, where a key skill is knowing how to get the best results from AI tools. Marketers will need to become comfortable working with AI, feeding it the right information about their brand, setting the guardrails (e.g., what tone or messages the AI should convey to customers), and then analyzing the AI-driven interactions to glean customer insights. In many ways, the job could become more analytical and more creative at the same time: analytical in guiding data-driven AI systems, and creative in devising ways to stand out in an AI-mediated marketplace.
Consumer behavior insights will still require human interpretation. An AI agent might tell you what people are buying and some of the why based on their queries, but understanding deeper cultural trends or emotional drivers might remain a human forte for a while. Moreover, building community and brand loyalty might extend beyond transactions, savvy marketers could leverage AI to handle sales while they double down on human elements like community management, experiential events, and customer service improvements that build a brand’s reputation.
In India, where the marketing industry is vibrant and often ingeniously frugal, professionals are likely to adopt AI as another tool in their kit. We may see a democratization effect: a 5-person startup can leverage AI to run marketing campaigns that look as polished as those of a 500-person corporation. This could spur a new wave of entrepreneurial marketing, small teams using AI to punch above their weight. At the same time, marketing agencies might shift to offering AI consultancy: helping businesses configure the right AI systems for commerce, or training brand-specific AI models.
One thing is certain: continuous learning will be crucial. The AI and commerce landscape is evolving fast, and marketers (as well as regulators, consumers, and technologists) will need to keep up. In India’s fast-growing digital economy projected to have 350–400 million online shoppers by 2025, spending about $150 billion, those who adapt to the AI revolution in marketing are likely to reap the rewards. The ability to interpret an AI’s output, correct its course when it misreads the cultural context, and add the magic of human creativity will differentiate successful marketing campaigns from bland AI-generic ones.
Transformative Moment
The dawn of AI-driven suggestions marks a transformative moment for the marketing industry, especially in India’s dynamic marketplace. As agentic commerce becomes reality, the way consumers discover and buy products is set to fundamentally change. Shopping can become as easy as chatting, and marketing becomes a two-way conversation mediated by intelligent algorithms. Indian businesses, from a family-run boutique in Jaipur to a tech startup in Bangalore – stand to benefit by reaching customers in more personalized, friction-free ways than ever before.
Of course, realizing this vision will require navigating challenges around data privacy, maintaining fair competition, and ensuring that the human touch in marketing isn’t lost but rather amplified by AI. The coming years will likely bring a mix of rapid innovation and necessary regulation in this space. In the meantime, early examples like ChatGPT’s Shopify integration or Flipkart’s Flippi assistant are offering a tantalizing glimpse of the future. They suggest a world where your next online purchase could happen entirely within a chat conversation. guided by an AI that knows exactly what you want (sometimes before you do), and where marketing is less about pushing messages out and more about being intelligently woven into the dialogue.
As India leads in digital adoption and adaptation, don’t be surprised if some of the most creative uses of AI in commerce emerge right here. After all, this is a country where jugaad, the art of frugal innovation, often meets cutting-edge tech in unexpected ways. The marketing playbook is being rewritten by AI, and in India’s case, it might just get written in multiple languages, spoken aloud, and executed by a friendly chatbot. The revolution is underway from chat to checkout, the way we shop and sell will never be the same.
(Insights From – MoneyControl, Tech Radar, Inc42, Economic Times, TOI AND BCG)
Also Read: The Rise of ChatGPT and DeepSeek: How 2 AI Giants Are Reshaping Our World
