The new era of online shopping is picking up steam.
Driving the news: Salesforce is the latest company to throw its hat in the AI shopping ring with the launch of its new shopper agent Carter, a tool designed to compare prices, answer customer questions, and cash them out within the chat.
Caila Schwartz, the head of Salesforce Agentic Commerce, told The Peak that they saw a 200% year-over-year jump in the number of shoppers using an AI agent as the first step in their shopping journey.
Why it matters: The ability to get products recommended by AI chatbots and agents, known as Agentic Engine Optimization (AEO), is now crucial to a business’s success. These AI bots are becoming the de facto gatekeepers of which products we’re exposed to (and thus what we buy).
“I think the great news for everybody across the industry is that it's somewhat of an equal playing field right now,” Schwartz said. “Everyone is trying to figure it out. But I don't think anyone has.”
Zoom in: AEO may still be in the trial-and-error phase, but there are some steps businesses can take to boost their chances of an AI agent or chatbot recommending their product. Schwartz says one of the most important things a business can do is make sure all of their website content is written by a human (AI crawlers assign higher value to natural language).
She also recommends keeping all product catalogue data up to date, having FAQs directly on your product detail page, and keeping close tabs on sites like Reddit, where AI agents look for “trust signals.”
Bottom line: By some estimates, AI agents could account for up to 20% of the entire online shopping market by 2030. Figuring out how to get those agents to organically point to a brand or product is the next frontier of the ~US$100 billion SEO industry.—LA
