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The impact of AI on eCommerce development

The impact of AI on eCommerce development

Wednesday October 24, 2018,

5 min Read



The application of Artificial Intelligence across various industries has revolutionized the interaction of consumers with businesses and vice-versa. However, one sector where its impact has the most potential is in eCommerce development. 

In the 21st century, the advancements in Artificial Intelligence have not only redefined accessibility from a customer standpoint but in sectors as dynamic as eCommerce; it has changed how businesses analyze its own potential and leverage customer data.

This is why top ecommerce development companies are keen to utilize AI to its fullest potential and create scalable and interactive platforms for businesses which enable it to sustain competitive advantage over its rivals. 

Leveraging AI for enhancement of Customer Experiences


Customer Experience and engagement is one of the most primary elements of importance for eCommerce companies today. Unlike physical stores, eCommerce platforms can’t deliver an immersive real-world experience to its customers. However, where eCommerce succeeds is in its ability to be functional and provide a more efficient experience for users. 

Through AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants, businesses are taking customer interaction to a greater level by reducing the need for application interfaces, and harnessing the potential of hardware devices such as smartphones and speakers to reach out to its customers. 

The key advantages of AI-powered chatbots are its 24/7 availability, minimal use of resources and faster rate of data interpretation in comparison to human assistants. Another major use of AI comes through its subsets of Deep and Machine learning. These subsets make use of Data analytics to recognize user patterns and make the right recommendations for users at the right time. 

Also read: Why Businesses Can’t Afford to Miss Chatbot Development ?

Presenting the users with the right information at the right time can go a long way in defining their experience with the business. With each user having their own personal preferences, AI can take personalization to a level which makes it interact with the business more closely than ever.

It’s a well-known fact that generalized interfaces for all types of customers are not considered appropriate in the context of customer engagement. Personalized interfaces, however, create more interaction and subsequently more business.

In the pursuit of the creation of personalized interfaces, every ecommmerce website design company today must leverage AI in order to understand more about the user, and design interfaces easily accessible to users with specific interests. 


Using AI to benefit sellers on eCommerce platforms




A major issue halting the growth of sellers on eCommerce platforms is their lack of control over the reviews made by customers. Fake reviews often leave a negative impact in the minds of potential customers about the products they might intend to purchase. This is an issue which needs a deeper focus on part of any eCommerce website design company. The corporate giant Amazon has successfully tackled this problem up to a small extent with the use of machine-learning for analyzing the reviews and putting the most authentic and relevant reviews on top. 

AI can be utilized as an effective filter to weed out errors and biases on eCommerce platforms. Such a filter can not only analyze fake reviews, but it can also be implemented to identify sellers using illegal or false means of advertising and selling counterfeit products.

The greatest potential of Artificial Intelligence lies in its ability to reach areas not so easily reachable by human means. The Chinese eCommerce giant Alibaba is using Bot scanning techniques to analyze and remove counterfeit products and those with false advertising. By acting as a filter for detecting false practices on eCommerce platforms, AI can bring greater levels of transparency in Online businesses. 


Using AI in eCommerce development for Big Data Analytics




Big Data analytics is the primary driver of marketing and sales practices of corporate giants including Google and Amazon. Large amounts of data collected by eCommerce platforms which include raw data of customer usage patterns, devices connected, user accounts and myriad other aspects are not easy to be analyzed by human workers alone. This is where AI and its subsets play a major role. 

The use of machine learning in Big Data analytics is the engine of every other benefit of AI ultimately passed on to the customers. In a time when the complexity of technology is increasing with each day, AI presents a viable solution to ease out this complexity, and make technology more understandable and accessible than ever before. However, what haunts its progress is the threat it places on the importance of human capital in organizations.

But as far as eCommerce is concerned, the use of Artificial Intelligence here is limited to the virtual experience it creates. At the end of the day, it only serves as something which provides a greater amount of information for the businesses to understand and implement, and additionally as a tool for an eCommerce website design company for practising and testing new interfaces personally designed for every customer.

In essence, the use of AI through machine learning and chatbots are the most viable use cases for eCommerce development companies. The progress in the development of AI-powered technologies poses new challenges along with the creation of new opportunities and expectations. 

The challenges presented by AI in ecommerce come in the form its unreliability in comparison with human conscience and the costs in chatbot development. However, the opportunities it presents far exceeds any negative aspects of it. eCommerce website design companies could create customer-specific platforms through AI which could bring personalization along with efficiency from both customer and business perspectives.