Global retail begins 2026 facing a structural change that promises to redesign both the consumer journey and the internal operations of companies: the AI Commerce, or, in simple explanation, digital commerce driven by artificial intelligence. As explained by the CEO of Revenue Previsível, specialist in conversion and sales and professor at Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV), Thiago Muniz, “the term includes all Artificial Intelligence applications dedicated to purchasing, sales, customer experience, logistics, marketing, pricing and inventory management, creating a more efficient, personalized and predictive commercial chain”.
Second data from the International Data Corporation (IDC), global spending on AI is expected to reach US$632 billion by 2028, maintaining a robust expansion pace. In Brazil, the use is already a reality: 52% of Brazilians used ChatGPT or other AI assistants to assist with purchases between 2024 and 2025 and 74% said that the technology influenced their product choices, according to Report of Retail 2025, by Adyen.
AI as core retail infrastructure
For the MBA professor at Fundação Getúlio Vargas (FGV) and author of book “Cognitive Organizations: Leveraging the Power of Generative AI and Intelligent Agents”, Kenneth Corrêa, “it is necessary to separate the past from the future: Classical AI has already been making inventory and price predictions for large retailers for years. The 2025 revolution has been driven by Generative AI and Intelligent Agent Networks. We are no longer just talking about predicting demand, but about autonomous agents that research prices, create personalized campaigns in real time and perform service and sales without human intervention. Retail stops being just digital and becomes a Cognitive Organization, where intelligence is not just a support, but the operational agent that connects the customer's intention to the logistics of delivery instantly.”
This change is reflected in the advancement of technologies such as intelligent purchasing agents, capable of understanding preferences and context; highly personalized recommendation systems, based on real consumer behavior; dynamic pricing models supported by margin and demand forecasts; logistics automation that connects distribution centers, stores and consumers; and AI-driven marketing strategies, capable of anticipating interests even before the click.
In retail, sales predictability and operational efficiency are increasingly decisive points, as highlighted by Thiago Muniz. "AI is transforming B2B and B2C retail in particular with B2B logic: a more consultative journey, advanced data analysis and commercial automation. For retailers, it will be increasingly essential to master relationship and sales predictions, so they can have more predictable cycles and healthier margins."
Data-driven technology choice: a new corporate behavior
The adoption of AI by retailers themselves is also transforming the way companies structure their operations and choose technologies to support the business. Software solutions, previously seen only as support tools, now occupy a strategic role in an increasingly data-driven environment.
"The most significant impact of AI Commerce will be on the quality of decision-making. We have already observed companies selecting platforms and reorganizing processes based on information generated by AI, such as usage metrics and analysis of expenses with tools that overlap in operations, causing losses. All of this with the help of Artificial Intelligence. This movement has led the sector to adopt more analytical and integrated approaches in the choice and management of its technologies", explains Fernando Neto, COO of the B2B software search and evaluation platform Stack.
This movement reinforces that AI Commerce is not limited to the end consumer and also encompasses internal strategic decisions.
Security, marketing, and search in AI Commerce
With a high volume of data circulating between recommendation systems, inventory, checkout, logistics and CRM, security begins to play a structuring role within this transformation. Despite the advancement of e-commerce in recent years, consumer insecurity is still a major challenge for the sector. One study released by Serasa Experian shows that, although the majority of Brazilians make online purchases regularly, 48.1% of respondents reported having already abandoned an order due to a lack of trust in the website or application — which reveals consumer insecurity regarding digital security.
"With more data, more integration and more automation, the risk surface also expands. The adoption of AI in retail requires attention to models, information flows and critical processes, ensuring that they function in an integral and secure way", explains cybersecurity expert, CEO and founder of Security First, Fernando Corrêa. “This movement involves practices such as audits of AI-based systems, continuous monitoring and prevention measures aimed at APIs, algorithms and data environments.”
Product search and discovery behavior is also undergoing a significant transformation driven by AI and new forms of digital navigation. Instead of actively searching for items, many consumers have adopted more passive journeys, based on the continuous flow of content recommended by platforms, social networks and marketplaces.
"The same capacity achieved by the social network's artificial intelligence is already beginning to be present in marketplaces and virtual stores in different segments. With stocks of thousands of products available in real time, it is increasingly necessary to individualize suggestions based on user interest and behavior. And this 'TikTok model', this technology, needs to be looked at carefully, as it is what has dictated the preferences of the digital buyer", analyzes the CEO of Kwara, a marketplace specializing in the sale of goods, products and assets, Thiago da Mata.
This increasing integration between data, automation and digital behavior has required marketers to review their practices and expand their understanding of how consumers make decisions in environments increasingly mediated by algorithms.
The CEO of Hay Hyve, a full-service global boutique agency, Bruna Madaloni, highlights: "AI's biggest impact on marketing in 2026 will not just be in personalization, but in the way it reorganizes human behavior within purchasing journeys. We are moving away from a campaign-based model and entering an ecosystem where brands need to respond in real time to people's emotions, motivations and cultural contexts. AI expands our ability to understand these signals, but requires maturity: each interaction needs to be relevant, ethical and intentional. Technology, in itself alone, it doesn't build value; what it builds is the experience it enables. For brands that want to grow in the coming years, the focus will be less on producing more content and more on delivering clarity, consistency and meaning to each customer, in any country, language or platform”.
The consolidation of AI Commerce also repositions the set of technologies, data and automation that support marketing operations as a central layer of integration between communications, sales and operations. In an environment with multiple points of contact and real-time decisions, this ecosystem starts to connect different systems and interpret behavioral signals continuously.
"In AI Commerce, MarTech integrates marketing, sales, inventory and service data into single analysis flows. AI models already support everything from dynamic segmentations to automatic adjustments of campaigns and offers, allowing decisions to follow consumer behavior and retail dynamics", says Lucas Monteiro, Martech Leader at Keyrus, an international consultancy specializing in Data Intelligence and Digital Transformation.
How AI Commerce will expand in 2026
Several vectors will drive the accelerated expansion of AI Commerce in the coming year:
- Consumers more comfortable with AI: the Everyday use of AI to discover products, compare prices or ask for help during the shopping journey already exceeds half of the population in Brazil. This accelerates the uptake of autonomous assistants, recommendations, and personalized experiences.
- Smarter supply chains: Large chains and e-commerces are migrating to demand forecasting models based on machine learning, reducing planning errors — one of the biggest costs in retail.
- Most connected physical stores: phygital's expansion accelerates in 2026: from smart fitting rooms to salespeople equipped with AI assistants that recommend products in real time.
- Growth of operational automation: AI takes on repetitive tasks in logistics, customer service, registration, replacement and even campaign design, freeing teams for strategic activities.
- Predictive marketing and full personalization: Real-time offers, dynamic targeting and AI-generated campaigns gain traction as retailers connect behavioral, weather, inventory and historical data.
- New monetization models: Structured data and AI-generated insights open doors to financial products, personalized curation, and added services integrated into the purchasing journey.
The advancement of AI Commerce marks a new stage for retail, in which data, automation and recommendation models begin to more directly integrate different phases of the operation. The combination of maturing technologies, changes in purchasing behavior and the search for more structured processes tends to increase the use of AI throughout 2026, gradually becoming central elements of planning and management in the sector.
