8 AI Trends in 2025: What Ecommerce Businesses Need to Know

In recent years, the sudden rise of artificial intelligence (AI) has led to what some analysts call an “AI arms race,” as major software companies compete to launch increasingly sophisticated AI products for a wide range of use cases. 

Business owners can make the most of these recent advances by leveraging AI tools to reduce costs and streamline their workflows. Ahead, you’ll learn about eight AI predictions that will define the industry in 2025.

8 AI trends shaping ecommerce in 2025

As improvements in AI applications accelerate, new technologies are making online store processes more efficient. 

Here are eight of the top AI trends shaping ecommerce in 2025:

1. Generative AI for enhanced creativity and efficiency
2. AI-powered personalization across the customer journey
3. The continued rise of conversational AI and AI agents
4. Predictive AI for smarter decision-making and forecasting
5. Digital twins for optimizing operations and customer experience
6. AI in cybersecurity: navigating evolving threats
7. Multimodal AI applications
8. Ethical considerations and evolving AI regulations

1. Generative AI for enhanced creativity and efficiency

As AI tools advance, content writers and marketing teams are expected to rely on AI-powered tools more and more to support the content creation process. 

McKinsey reports that 71% of companies now use generative AI in at least one business function, with marketing and sales the most common area of deployment. In a peer-reviewed study published in Science, access to ChatGPT cut the time for professional writing tasks by 40% and raised output quality by 18%.

For ecommerce businesses, that goes beyond generating blog posts. AI in ecommerce includes generating product descriptions and marketing copy, automating answers to customer support inquiries, and updating your website. “The cost of any software effort is essentially trending toward zero,” says Alex Pilon, a senior developer at Shopify. “If you’re a Shopify merchant, you can redesign your site for Valentine’s Day today and revert tomorrow for a few dollars in tokens instead of a four-figure agency fee.”

Generative AI tools like Shopify Magic can help ecommerce stores with these tasks. Use AI to create branded copy for your business in seconds with simple prompting and real-time data from your own store. 

As of 2025, Google can detect AI-generated content, but it’s not penalized as long as it meets Google’s quality standards. The rise of available tools and quality guidelines from Google shows that gen AI is becoming a creative partner for brands, not just another shiny add-on. 

2. AI-powered personalization across the customer journey 

AI tools can enhance a business’s ability to offer personalized customer experiences across every touchpoint. Since it can take up to 50 touchpoints to make a sale, AI tools can save you a lot of time on personalizations.

These days, customers assume brands will personalize their shopping experience. A 2024 Boston Consulting Group survey of 23,000 consumers found that 80% of customers worldwide are comfortable with personalized experiences, and the majority expect companies to offer them.

AI applications for customer personalization include:

• Personalized product and content recommendations. AI-powered recommendation engines on Shopify stores can analyze browsing history, past purchases, or even items in a customer’s cart to surface relevant or complementary products—driving impulse buys and increasing average order value.
• AI-powered shopping assistants. Conversational tools can operate as personalized shopping guides, answering product questions and helping customers navigate large or complex catalogs.
• Enhanced behavioral and demographic targeting. AI helps personalize email campaigns, marketing messages, and delivery channels based on segmented or individual behavior, improving engagement and conversion rates.

Shopify automatically gathers customer data from all your channels—what they’ve clicked, what they’ve bought, what they’ve left in their cart—and brings it into one customer profile. All that information lives in one place, and you can use it to personalize emails, texts, or on-site recommendations. You can market to each customer as if you remember them personally without manually managing that data. 

Paired with a personalization app like Nosto, you can make every shopping experience relevant and authentic so consumers develop a deeper loyalty to your brand.

3. The continued rise of conversational AI and AI agents

AI agents are the hot new thing in business. PwC reports that 73% of companies agree that how they use AI agents will give them a significant competitive advantage in the coming 12 months. That report aligns with evolving consumer behavior: Consumers are taking kindly to AI agents, as roughly 40% of Gen Z and millennials would work with an AI agent instead of a person if it meant getting faster service. 

Alex explains that there is a difference between a purpose-built agent and generic prompting. “An agent is a purpose-specific configuration of AI. You give it tools (APIs, databases), resources (your product docs, brand voice), and a system prompt, and it becomes a super-intelligence at that one thing—for example, a marketing expert that’s connected to your Shopify store.”

Conversational AI is also evolving into more sophisticated agents capable of handling complex customer inquiries, managing initial support tickets, and even assisting with internal workflows. For Shopify merchants, that can mean 24/7 AI customer service for online stores, faster resolution of common issues, and reduced service costs with Shopify Inbox.

AI applications can also take on certain training and development tasks: An AI-powered human resources chatbot could walk new employees through onboarding processes and answer common questions. Increasingly sophisticated AI models can also allow employees to create communications for internal audiences more efficiently, improving operational productivity.

4. Predictive AI for smarter decision-making and forecasting

Predictive AI is transforming how ecommerce businesses make decisions by analyzing data to forecast trends and outcomes. These AI-powered tools can predict sales patterns, optimize inventory levels to reduce stockouts, and identify customers at risk of churn. 

NVIDIA’s 2025 State of AI in Retail and CPG found that 44% of retailers use AI for predictive analytics, and 41% use it for customer analysis and segmentation, which are both used to inform sales and demand forecasts. 

With smarter AI demand forecasting, businesses can better manage inventory investment and improve cash flow. AI can also optimize pricing strategies by analyzing competitor pricing, market conditions, and customer behavior in real time.

Shopify merchant Doe Beauty leverages Shopify’s AI-driven tools to manage inventory across its global supply chain efficiently. Each week, it saves $30,000 and about four hours of human labor—thanks to Shopify Flow automations. 

5. Digital twins for optimizing operations and customer experience

A digital twin is a virtual replica of a real-world entity or process. Paired with AI, digital twin technology has the potential to transform business operations by predicting likely outcomes based on specific decisions.

McKinsey reports that product digital twins have already cut development times by as much as 50% for some companies, slashing costs while speeding up launches. Instead of designing a real-world prototype for every product design tweak and conducting extensive physical testing, you can quickly alter a digital representation of the product and run simulations to evaluate performance.

For ecommerce businesses, digital twins can also model supply chains, simulate customer flow in physical retail stores, and optimize warehouse layouts for more efficient fulfillment. Some merchants are using digital replicas of products for virtual try-ons—improving customer experience and reducing returns.

On top of predicting outcomes based on predetermined inputs, AI models can make this process prescriptive—AI-powered digital twinning systems can recommend product or process improvements.

Medical experts predict that, in the near future, digital twinning could also aid in drug discovery and development. They predict it could even be used to model disease progression and create personalized treatment plans. For ecommerce merchants, the benefits of AI are clear: streamlined logistics, reduced operational costs, faster delivery times, and enhanced omnichannel experiences that meet rising customer expectations.

6. AI in cybersecurity: navigating evolving threats

Like any technology, AI is susceptible to exploitation by malicious actors—and AI innovations are enabling increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, including advanced phishing schemes targeting customer data. But on the flip side, AI is also one of the most powerful tools for defending against next-generation threats.

Experts anticipate that ecommerce businesses will continue adopting AI, automation, and machine learning algorithms to identify and respond to attacks in real time. 

Morgan Stanley has identified several key applications of AI in cybersecurity:

• Identifying attacks.AI tools can detect cyberattacks, determine risk levels, and respond accordingly. Because AI can process large volumes of data quickly, it may catch threats human users miss.
• Providing phishing defense. AI systems can flag messages that are likely part of phishing campaigns and alert users before any damage is done—helping protect merchant accounts from compromise.
• Exposing vulnerabilities. Security teams can simulate attacks using these tools to identify weaknesses and patch them before a real threat strikes.

Shopify offers enterprise-grade security right inside the ecommerce platform. Features include:

• Machine-learning fraud analysis that flags risky orders in real time
• Shopify Protect, which reimburses merchants for eligible Shop Pay chargebacks 
• No-code Shopify Flow to automatically cancel or hold suspicious transactions before shipping 

The benefits for ecommerce are clear: reduced fraud losses, fewer chargebacks, better protection for sensitive data, and greater customer trust—keeping your business secure and your reputation strong.

7. Multimodal AI applications

Multimodal AI simultaneously processes multiple types of data—like text, images, audio. and video—enabling richer and more versatile ecommerce applications. For example, visual search lets customers find products by uploading photos, while AI can analyze customer feedback across reviews, social media, and videos to uncover deeper insights.

Gartner projects that by 2026, more than 60% of generative AI solutions will use multimodal AI, up from under 1% in 2023. This technology also helps create engaging, dynamic product content that combines images, descriptions, and even audio or video demos. This approach offers shoppers a more immersive experience. 

By leveraging multimodal AI, ecommerce businesses can improve product discovery, gain a fuller understanding of customer preferences, and deliver content that captures attention and drives conversions.

8. Ethical considerations and evolving AI regulations

With human rights advocates, labor groups, and business leaders closely watching developments in the technology, there’s no shortage of excitement—or concern—about AI’s impact on the global economy and quality of life. 

Recent AI regulations have expanded beyond creative industries to include stricter consumer data privacy laws and rules on AI use in marketing and decision-making. For ecommerce merchants, this means increased scrutiny on how customer data is collected, stored, and used for personalization and targeted campaigns.

Compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA isn’t just a legal obligation—it’s key to building customer trust. Transparent data handling, clear consent, and ethical AI use help merchants avoid algorithmic bias in pricing or personalization..

As regulations evolve, many organizations are adopting ethical AI standards internally—hiring AI ethicists, auditing AI systems for bias, and setting transparency guidelines. For ecommerce, this approach strengthens customer confidence, loyalty, and long-term brand reputation while helping businesses stay ahead of regulatory requirements.

The impact of AI trends on different business sizes

AI isn’t just for big enterprises—ecommerce merchants of all sizes can benefit from these technologies. For small businesses, accessible AI-powered tools integrated with Shopify (like automated product descriptions, personalized email campaigns, and AI-driven customer support chatbots) offer powerful ways to save time and boost sales without a big budget or technical team. 

Larger businesses can leverage advanced AI solutions for predictive analytics, dynamic pricing, and sophisticated inventory management to optimize operations at scale. 

No matter the size of your store, adopting AI tools thoughtfully can enhance efficiency, improve customer experiences, and help you stay competitive in today’s fast-moving ecommerce landscape. Shopify’s ecosystem offers scalable AI options designed to fit your unique business needs.