The way customers shop has changed faster than most brands expected. The classic website journey, search, browse, compare, add to cart, is disappearing.
Today, people ask platforms like ChatGPT to do the heavy lifting: “Find me the best running shoes under €150”. And AI doesn’t browse. It evaluates structured data, cross-checks inventory, compares attributes, and instantly produces a shortlist.
This new discovery layer is rapidly becoming the primary gateway to e-commerce. Global projections estimate that AI agents could orchestrate between $3 and $5 trillion in transactions by 2030. Shopify is already seeing the impact: AI-driven traffic has grown 7× and orders attributed to AI search are up 11×.
If your brand data isn’t unified and machine-ready, you won’t show up in these conversations. Not because customers aren’t interested, because the AI simply can’t find you.
The solution is not “more marketing”. It’s better architecture.
Traditional omnichannel stacks, multiple tools stitched together, don’t adequately support AI. They create data silos, slow syncs, inconsistent stock visibility, and broken personalisation. AI can’t work with that.
Brands that are winning have moved to a Unified Commerce approach, where e-commerce, POS, inventory, and customer data all live in one platform with real-time accuracy. This single source of truth is the foundation AI requires to understand your catalog, personalise customer journeys, and recommend your products.
It’s the difference between being visible and being invisible.
Generative AI has transformed discovery from keyword-based search to intent-driven recommendations.
Users don’t browse through pages of products. They describe what they want, and an AI chatbot generates a list of recommendations, based on a multitude of factors including budget,location, weather, user preferences, demographic information, and more.
The buyer's journey has become faster, shorter, and far more competitive. Brands are seeing higher engagement, better retention, and fewer abandoned carts, but only when their data is unified and clean. If your catalog isn’t structured properly, AI simply doesn’t recommend you. This is the rise of Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO).
Many retailers still depend on fragmented stacks where each system manages a different part of the business: catalog data in one platform, inventory in another, point of sale in a third.
This patchwork structure creates delays and inconsistencies that AI simply cannot work with. Autonomous agents require clean, real-time data, not batch updates or duplicated records.
You see this clearly in social commerce. The native integration between TikTok and Shopify Shop eliminates fragmentation and creates a seamless operational flow. Brands can manage orders, catalog, and payments from one dashboard, while inventory updates automatically across channels.
When a product sells on TikTok, Shopify reflects the stock change instantly. This turns video-driven curiosity into a frictionless purchase and accelerates the move toward social-first selling.
That’s the vision. Unified Commerce removes complexity by consolidating every channel and operation into a single platform with one source of truth, unlocking real-time accuracy and 360° customer view required to deliver genuine hyper-personalisation.
Find out more in our dedicated webinar!
Shopify’s architecture was built for this moment. With unified data at its core and billions of transactions feeding its AI models, Shopify gives brands a competitive advantage that’s difficult to replicate:
Because the platform is centralised, these AI tools act instantly and in sync with real inventory and customer data.
Brands that remove complexity and fragmentation by consolidating their systems and data reduce TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) by up to 22%. That’s lower costs, faster implementations, and dramatic uplifts in conversions and revenue.
As a Shopify Plus Partner, power2Cloud supports brands through this transformation with tailored strategies, unified system architectures, and AI-driven optimisation frameworks.
To help teams navigate this new landscape, we’re hosting a webinar on December 9th, 2025 at 2:00 PM (GMT+1) designed specifically for commerce leaders:
AI & Unified Commerce: The Blueprint for 11x Order Growth
Featuring:
Dane Van Zyl - Director at power2Cloud ZA
Giovanni Pollarolo - Senior Solution at power2Cloud
Elisa Pera - Account Executive at Shopify
They will walk through how AI is reshaping discovery, what makes Unified Commerce the only sustainable architecture for the next decade, and how brands can become truly “agent-ready” in a zero-click world.
The session will also include a dedicated Q&A segment. This is your chance to go beyond the theory! You will have the opportunity to ask direct questions to our experts, clarify your doubts and outline your next steps towards becoming an AI-ready brand.
Don't miss the chance to shape your commerce future. Register now and secure your seat!