Break Out of Spreadsheet Speed: Agility Strategies to Win the Algorithm

Jan 9, 2026

Louis Camassa, Director of Product Management at Rithum and author of the 2026 Commerce Readiness Index, dives into the urgency for brands to break free from 'spreadsheet speed.' He reveals that 63% of commerce teams struggle with data quality, emphasizing its critical role in decision-making. Louis discusses inventory latency as a competitive edge and warns about the 9% decline in e-commerce traffic due to the zero-click phenomenon. He also highlights the energy infrastructure bottlenecks that threaten AI advancements, pushing for a culture shift in commerce.

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INSIGHT

Spreadsheet Speed Is A Competitive Handicap

Most companies operate at 'spreadsheet speed' manually reconciling product data across channels.
Louis Camassa says automation and data readiness are essential to scale beyond manual processes.

ADVICE

Unify Channel Management With One Platform

Use a single platform to manage many sales channels instead of scaling separate teams per channel.
Louis Camassa recommends a 'Roku' approach to avoid overhead and tribal knowledge fragmentation.

ANECDOTE

Men's Wearhouse Concierge Analogy

Louis Camassa compares AI shopping agents to a Men's Wearhouse concierge who asks needs and measures.
He uses this story to show AI can tailor recommendations by asking specific product criteria.

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The future of commerce hinges on agility, but most brands remain stuck at spreadsheet speed. Louis Camassa, Director of Product Management at Rithum, breaks down findings from the 2026 Commerce Readiness Index and reveals why data quality, inventory latency, and algorithmic visibility matter more than channel expansion. We’re uncovering the infrastructure bottlenecks threatening AI's potential, and what it actually takes for brands to compete when algorithms decide what gets discovered.

Your 2026 Resolution: Get Unstuck

Key takeaways:

63% of commerce teams face data quality issues affecting business decisions
Inventory latency remains a competitive differentiator in agentic commerce experiences
Zero-click phenomenon reducing referral traffic by 9% across e-commerce channels
AI compute costs compressed 10x in one year, matching traditional search
Energy infrastructure, not algorithms, poses the greatest bottleneck to AI advancement

Key Quotes:

[00:02:04] Lou Camassa: "Most companies, whether you're a retailer or brand, you're moving at spreadsheet speed. That's just not the way of the future."
[00:10:55] Lou Camassa: "We don't want to take from the past and just push it into the future. When we go into a chat experience, we don't want to drop somebody onto a homepage with a banner and categories. Let's think about this differently."
[00:18:58] Lou Camassa: "We're seeing drops of about 9% across e-commerce in general on referral sources from Google because data is just being propagated in the AI overviews."
[00:24:04] Lou Camassa: "Inventory latency is going to be a big game changer. It helps us get faster shipping and creates a competitive factor, specifically in LLM search, where everything else is commoditized."

Associated Links:

Check out Rithum’s 2026 Commerce Readiness Index
Learn more about Rithum’s offerings.
Check out Future Commerce on YouTube
Check out Future Commerce Plus for exclusive content and save on merch and print
Subscribe to Insiders and The Senses to read more about what we are witnessing in the commerce world
Listen to our other episodes of Future Commerce

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