A major theme of A.I. in search is that it will make it easier than ever to reach a purchase point. A.I. “shopping assistants” will be highly consequential to bringing more and more searchers to making a purchase.
The Five Most-Key Takeaways from This Blog Post
- An example is a tool like Perplexity’s Shop Like a Pro tool (the “Pro” referring to Perplexity Pro tier; what constitutes a “pro” shopper vs. e.g. an amateur shopper is anyone’s guess).
- The expectation is that these shopping assistants will not actually buy the product for you, but actually just put products in your virtual shopping cart and leave the actual purchasing up to you.
- Something that will also speed up the purchasing process (ideal for impulse buyers, or perhaps not if you really think about it) is being able to basically keep a credit card “on file” with a particular search engine so that you do not need to type it in for every purchase. This can generalize one-click purchases across the entire search experience.
- This connects to the larger project in the next generation of search, which is to take much of the investigation process of the online shopping experience out of the scrolling and clicking hands of the consumer. Search engines that collate reviews, product-comparison details, and summaries, could encourage quicker and easier purchases.
- The ultimate goal for search engines is to continue to make the search experience a facilitator of consumer purchases, which in turn can attract advertisers to spend money on the platform.
Confirm Order
The button with those two words, a Rubicon-crossing command of online commerce, is always in the final stages of most online shoppers’ purchasing experience.
The way search is headed, consumers will be seeing those words sooner than ever.
That is because A.I. agents that serve as shopping assistants will be able to automate a lot of the steps that usually the shopper would need to take to reach that point.
These can, in effect, take care of the busywork of getting a product into a cart and filling out consumer information (e.g., credit-card info, shipping address) for the purchase.
So long as a consumer is comfortable with delegating the research process to an A.I. agent, and keeping key personal information on file with a search engine, then purchasing online will be a highly convenient process.
The Connection to A Changing Search Experience
Major players in search like Google and Microsoft (creator of Bing) have made no secret of those companies’ drive to transform the search experience using A.I.
Specifically, generative A.I. and conversational computing. These will make online searches feel more like conversations with a chatbot, and the S.E.R.P.’s will look more like blogs with lists and videos and graphs (oh my!).
That will give searchers the impression of getting a comprehensive, trustworthy overview of a product. In combination with A.I. shopping assistants, this new type of search engine’s S.E.R.P.’s will serve as the jumping point to making a quick purchase with the shopping assistant.
The Benefit for Business Owners
With so much stimulating content that each online-shopping experience’s generated search page will likely yield more purchases on average than the S.E.R.P.’s of yore.
That, in turn, can mean that search engines will remain a key driver of business for companies with an online web presence.
The Last (But Not Least) Key Takeaway
Search as we know it will become more stimulating and information-dense. That alone can help in leading someone to a purchase.
But a potentially bigger difference-maker has to do with the A.I. shopping assistants, A.I. agents that take the responsibilities of agency (such as product comparisons, product research, sifting through reviews, and the like) out of consumers’ hands for the sake of convenience.
Online shopping is already convenient. A.I. will just make it even more convenient.
Other Great GO AI Blog Posts
GO AI the blog offers a combination of information about, analysis of, and editorializing on A.I. technologies of interest to business owners, with especial focus on the impact this tech will have on commerce as a whole.
On a usual week, there are multiple GO AI blog posts going out. Here are some notable recent articles:
- For Businesses and Other Organizations, What Makes a Successful Chatbot?
- IBM Watson vs. ChatGPT vs. Gemini: How Will Each Affect Search Engines?
- Using A.I. to Find Resources for Business Owners
- How Would Restricting Open-Source A.I. Affect Business Owners?
- The EU’s A.I. Act Has Become Law: The Implications for Business Owners (Especially American)
In addition to our GO AI blog, we also have a blog that offers important updates in the world of search engine optimization (SEO), with blog posts like “Google Ends Its Plan to End Third-Party Cookies”.
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