A quarter of Gen Z and Millennial consumers now trust AI recommendations more than human ones, marking the arrival of retail's first post-human interface. Sharon Gee, SVP of Product at Commerce, joins us to explore the paradox of digital intimacy: why consumers will bare their souls to ChatGPT about shopping needs yet abandon carts when brands ask them to create accounts, how LLMs are becoming intimate commerce companions, and what this means for the collapse of traditional commerce funnels and brand discovery in an AI-mediated world.
The New Game Is Intelligibility
Key takeaways:
- 27% of millennials trust AI recommendations more than humans, yet abandon carts when forced to create accounts: the trust paradox.
- Merchants must shift from channel management to model management: optimizing for how AI interprets your brand, not controlling distribution.
- Answer engine optimization isn't gaming algorithms. It's ensuring your brand shows up with authority when AI agents search on behalf of consumers.
- Three-party commerce is here: consumer, brand, and AI intermediary. The customer is the channel, and data is the new storefront.
- [00:01:42] "Our customers are having to shift their mindset from channel management to model management... The old game was distribution. The new game is intelligibility. And brands that win are gonna be the ones that understand the model and understand how they can adapt their message to the new modes of interacting with consumers." – Lindsay Trinkle
- [00:41:02] "Customers are the channel and the data is the storefront. And so what we need to be able to do is make sure that we understand at each interaction point when you show up with your brand. How is your data representing you?" – Sharon Gee
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