October 17, 2026 – After returning from Shoptalk 2026, our team compared notes from conversations across retail and eCommerce. A recurring theme was the need to connect AI capabilities with specific business goals: helping customers find relevant products, improving support, and giving people a reason to return.
The conversations covered customer behavior, product capabilities, and the role of AI in existing platforms. Questions about retention, average order value, and customer lifetime value helped make these discussions more concrete.
Here are the main insights Oleksii Morgun, our AI Solutions Business Development Manager, brought back from Shoptalk.
Business Goals Help Define Where AI Can Be Useful
AI can support many parts of a retail business. Choosing where to invest becomes easier when the team identifies the outcome it wants to improve.
In Oleksii’s conversations, customer retention, average order value, and lifetime value were recurring priorities. These gave discussions about AI a practical direction.
For example, a business looking to increase repeat purchases needs to understand why customers return and where they lose interest. A team focused on average order value may need to make relevant complementary products easier to discover.
Each goal points to different capabilities, data requirements, and ways to measure success. Defining that goal early helps teams decide which AI use cases deserve attention. It also creates a clearer basis for evaluating the result after launch.
Existing Products Can Be the Starting Point
Some conversations focused on adding AI capabilities to platforms already in use.
Many of these teams described a gap between how they position their product and what it delivers. Their platforms have been on the market for years and carry AI features, but those features often cover only narrow moments in the experience. As competitors add AI, they feel pressure to keep pace and protect their user base. Several said they lack internal capacity and rely on partners’ ready-made components.
For an established product, this raises practical questions. Which part of the experience needs improvement? Where could an AI assistant help? What information would it need, and how would it work with the existing system?
The opportunity may involve customer support, product discovery, or another interaction that already takes place on the platform.
AI development can build on an existing product’s strengths. It should reflect how customers use the product and which problems the team wants to solve.
This makes generative AI integration a product decision as well as an engineering task. The new capability needs a clear role within the broader experience.
Customer Understanding Comes Before Relevant Engagement
Conversations at Shoptalk also explored how businesses could better understand customer behavior.
What do people do on a platform? Which products do they buy? Where do they leave the journey? What might encourage them to return? These questions help establish where AI could provide useful assistance. They also help teams avoid adding interactions that create more noise for customers.
A relevant recommendation depends on context. So does a helpful follow-up or a well-timed offer. Better engagement begins with understanding what the customer is trying to do. From there, businesses can identify where guidance, information, or a product suggestion could improve the experience.
Conversational AI Can Support More of the Buying Journey
Customer support was one application discussed, alongside sales assistance and product discovery.
This reflects a broader opportunity for Conversational AI in retail. An assistant may help a customer understand a product, compare options, or find information needed to make a purchase decision.
Conversations also included interest in proactive engagement: how an assistant could offer a useful next step and keep an interaction moving. The design challenge is deciding when that intervention helps. A suggestion should relate to the customer’s needs and the context of the conversation.
The value comes from making the next step easier for the shopper. Businesses can then evaluate whether the experience supports their service and sales goals.
AI-Assisted Support Remains a Practical Use Case
Alongside customer-facing experiences, Oleksii noted interest in AI assistance for support teams. Employees need to find information, understand requests, and respond efficiently. These tasks provide a concrete starting point for exploring where AI can help.
An internal assistant can be evaluated against the work it supports. Teams can examine whether employees find answers faster, whether responses remain useful, and how the workflow affects service quality. This gives businesses a focused way to assess the technology in everyday operations.
Supporting employees is also part of improving the customer experience. The tools behind the interaction influence how effectively a team can help the person on the other side.
The Path Forward
Our takeaway from Shoptalk is that retail AI initiatives need a defined purpose within the business and the customer journey.
That purpose might be helping shoppers choose products, supporting service employees, or extending an existing platform. The next step is to connect the use case with the information, integrations, and measures needed to make it work.
If you are deciding which opportunities to prioritize, our AI Compass Sprint can help assess readiness and define a practical implementation roadmap.
Ready to explore AI for your retail business or eCommerce platform? Get in touch with our team to discuss your product, customer experience challenges, and business goals.
About Master of Code Global
Master of Code Global is an AI implementation partner specializing in custom AI development, including Generative AI, AI agents, voice, and large-scale, enterprise-grade systems. The company works with organizations to design and deploy AI solutions aligned with real business needs, supporting adoption, integration, and long-term operational use across complex environments.
About Shoptalk
Shoptalk Fall brings together retailers, consumer brands, technology companies, and industry leaders to discuss the future of retail and commerce. The event combines conference sessions with meetings and peer exchange across customer experience, technology, operations, marketing, merchandising, and AI.