AI is wining and dining your customers... without you. 👩‍🍳

I just finished It came highly recommended by Mike Rhodes—podcast guest next week! The book explores how we got to this point with generative AI, where it might lead, and what it means for our work and personal lives.a brilliant book called Co-Intelligence.

One of the principles that I have taken on board is to always “invite AI to the table”.

Quick side note: I once worked with a company so obsessed with “keeping the customer in every conversation” that they dressed up a teddy bear as a customer proxy. Every meeting, this bear sat at the head of the table. True story. Creepy as hell.

Anyway, AI is now always at my table.

Drafting proposal pitch decks, planning holidays, coaching notes, comparing T&C’s, school homework, developing Python scripts (self taught, no lessons thank you very much Pop!), finessing web copy, restaurant recommendations and brainstorming Christmas rizzes with my kids. Sometimes it gives me shortcuts I would not have considered. Sometimes it leads me down unproductive rabbit holes.

Overall, it’s surprised me with the breadth of uses I hadn’t previously considered, and it’s saved me more time than it’s cost me. Win.

But a recent trend I’ve noticed in ecommerce is brands parachuting AI straight onto the customer’s table. In many cases, brands aren’t even at the table anymore—they’ve been demoted to the butler. Worse still, tech giants are taking your customers out to dinner and leaving you paying the bill.

We’ve already seen Google and Meta use Gen-AI to summarise results and Amazon add personalised Shopping Guides rather than direct customers straight to you. This week alone, we saw:

• Decjuba is letting customers use Google Sales Assistant in Google Search to get personalised product recommendations—no website visit required. (Thanks David!)

• AI-powered search engine, Perplexity, announced that it would provide in GPT shopping recommendations and ad placements.

• And in a shock to pranksters around the world, they are now replacing drive-through kids with AI voice agents.

It’s a lot of change, and it’s happening fast.

But here’s the thing: despite brand trust being at a recent low, new research shows that 4 in 5 Australian Millenials and GenZ are cool with AI service - if it is faster than dealing with humans. What’s cutting-edge today will be table stakes for customer expectations tomorrow. The question for brands now is, what is your role at the table?

Can the warmth of real people be replaced by automations? What’s your unique brand experience if AI customer service can be bought off the shelf? And if bots are helping customers shop, what happens next—a bot-off?

If you don’t have a game plan for AI-driven customer service, personalised product recommendations, and next-level experiences, you’ll lose your seat at the table. Your meal ticket will vanish. Someone else will eat your lunch. Hey Siri, stop.

Cheers
Bushy

ECOMMERCE NEWS

📸 Google Lens Goes Neighbourhood Shopping
Did you know that Google hosts a whopping 45 billion product listings and processes 4 billion visual searches every month? Now, they’re putting that data to work with Google Lens, letting users snap in-store product photos to find pricing and availability nearby. Plus, they’re integrating product catalogs into Google Maps results.

📱 Instagram’s Algorithm Amnesty
In a reprieve to those who have gone down a 2am conspiracy theory rabbit hole, Instagram is testing letting users reset their feed algorithm. Pitched as a chance to provide age-appropriate content, I see it as forgiveness. For brands, this is one to watch if it goes mainstream as it has the potential to activate zombie followers.

🧮 Google Analytics New Customer Match Feature
In the continuing fight for 1st party data control, Google announced their Customer Match feature for Google Analytics. Google Analytics will now store first-party data collected via websites and use it to strengthen remarketing across linked Google ad platforms. While Google Ads already offers Customer Match, this new feature will not require manual CSV uploads.

👛 Luxury Goes Virtual with Prada & Miu Miu
Luxury is weird. From the perfectly merchandised and gloriously smelling stores, Prada has just created virtual bags for their collaboration with Miu Miu for Snapchatters to add to their Bitmoji characters. They’re not alone - Ralph Lauren and Valentino have done so before them. Perhaps its a version of renting luxury. (Thanks Suzy!)

🎭 Amazon Reviews: Starring Adam Driver
If you’ve been in ecommerce for a while, you would know that product and store reviews are a great source of dramatic stories. Amazon has taken this to the next level by hiring actor, Adam Driver, to turn them into theatrical monologues. And the result is glorious. If not Oscar worthy, it’s at least silver Logie territory.

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Nathan Bush is an independent Australian ecommerce transformation consultant, with expertise in marketing, technology, and team leadership. If you're looking for fresh ideas, facing key decisions, or implementing significant investments, I'd love to work with you. Learn more and get in touch.