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Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the way e-commerce applications personalise the shopping experience, moving beyond conventional product recommendations to potentially influence the entire interface customers see when they open an app, according to an industry report by AppMaker.
The report highlighted that most mobile shopping applications currently display similar homepages to visitors, with personalised recommendations generally appearing as customers browse products. However, the emerging approach involves using customers' previous activities and shopping behaviour to customise the content and layout of an application right from the beginning of a shopping session. AI is starting to push that personalization earlier: into what a shopper sees the moment they open the app, not just what is pushed toward them after theyve already started browsing, the report said. Under this approach, information such as products a customer has viewed, items left in a shopping cart and previous purchases could influence what appears on their screen. For instance, a returning customer who has abandoned a shopping cart could see different content from someone visiting the app for the first time. The report said this represents a shift from conventional personalisation, in which businesses decide which banners or recommendations to display to particular customer groups, towards experiences that can vary from one shopper to another. Personalisation strategies need to evolve from picking which banner a certain segment sees toward designing for a session that can feel and look different for every visitor, said Atul Poharkar, CEO of AppMaker. The shift also has implications for how e-commerce applications are designed, developed and tested. According to the report, AI tools can assist with gathering requirements, writing user stories, developing ideas and translating design concepts into application components. This could reduce the time spent on repetitive development tasks, allowing developers to focus on functionality, integrations and business-specific requirements. It also highlighted that AI could help businesses connect customer information, performance data and campaign tools that traditionally operate across separate systems. The report said these capabilities could help merchants investigate changes in conversion rates, forecast revenue and initiate campaigns targeting customers who have abandoned shopping carts or stopped engaging with a business. However, the report highlighted challenges in translating AI adoption into everyday business use. It cited a finding that 68 per cent of companies adopting AI agents reported that half or fewer of their employees interacted with an agent in their everyday work. It also emphasised the need for reliable data and clear governance before businesses expand automated decision-making. Companies need to establish which decisions AI systems can make independently and which require human review. The report said the shift means e-commerce applications are increasingly being viewed not simply as products developed and launched once, but as systems that require continuous management and refinement. (ANI)
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