With Manchester Digital (MD Ecom) 2026 coming soon, it’s worth reflecting on how quickly the foundations of digital commerce are shifting. In a recent conversation with the tech delivery team at AO.com. I spoke to Laura Hobson (Head of Delivery), Chris Thompson (Tech Delivery Partner), and Colin Steele (Delivery Lead), to explore how emerging technologies are reshaping the industry landscape. It was clear from the conversation that we are rapidly moving away from traditional User Interfaces, where customers spend hours scrolling through filters, towards a world of agentic commerce where AI tools will supersede traditional search engines and choose products on behalf of customers. We could be approaching a peak in customer convenience for digital products, but could there be too many unknowns?
The rise of hyper-personalisation
When I spoke to the AO.com delivery team, Chris’s view was that AI offers “hyper-personalisation” and can squeeze a timeline significantly for those wishing to research before making a product choice. Instead of days of manual searching and procrastinating, AI agents can narrow thousands of options down to a handful in seconds, making logical decisions based on the inputs they’re given.
Colin envisages AI moving beyond the screen, where hardware like AI glasses could identify a broken appliance in your kitchen, absorb the information it needs on the current brand and spec, then suggest a replacement without you ever picking up a phone. It’s a shift from browsing to delegating – where the customer sets intent, and the machine executes.That sounds like the future, doesn’t it?
Trust will remain the driver
However, for a brand to remain the preferred choice when the decision-maker is an algorithm, trust will remain the primary driver. In my chat with the AO team, Laura also emphasised that “the AI tool will use trust as the primary driver to present the results“. In a world where customers no longer browse, brands aren’t competing for attention – they’re competing for algorithmic trust. To win in this environment, retailers must provide evidence or what Colin refers to as “signals” which AI agents or tools can ingest. These signals include high-quality content and industry-leading reputations, such as AO’s 4.9 Trustpilot score. Visibility will increasingly be earned through credibility, not clicks.
What this means for online retailers
As algorithms become increasingly integrated with human decision-making, the winners in e-commerce will be those who ensure their brand is in a strong position before these technologies fully mature. The interface is changing, but the fundamental need for reliability and quality is permanent.
The real question isn’t whether customers will adopt AI agents, but whether your brand will be chosen when they do.
