E-commerce Trends 2026: Five Signals of a Coming Revolution
Session Overview
ChatGPT now lets users shop. Perplexity has launched in-app checkout. As AI agents begin to take over more of the shopping journey, a familiar concern is resurfacing: if AI owns the front end of commerce, will brands lose their visibility and control?
But we have heard this prediction before. Similar claims were made when search engines dominated traffic, and again when marketplaces were expected to swallow everything. Yet no single platform has ever captured more than half of the market. From Amazon and Alibaba to Coupang, the pattern remains the same: structural forces shape commerce in ways that technology alone cannot fully override.
This session asks three important questions. Why has no platform ever been able to dominate more than half of the market? Why has online conversion improved so little compared with offline retail, despite years of optimization? And whose salesperson should AI become — a neutral third-party assistant, or a brand’s own AI designed around its data and customer experience?
Drawing on global case studies and emerging data, the talk explores why AI agents may not be a threat to e-commerce, but rather its greatest opportunity yet. At the center of this shift is the return of the salesperson — now reimagined through AI.
Speaker
Originally an investor in the company, he joined the leadership team in January 2026, driven by the belief that AI would fundamentally reshape how businesses connect with customers.
He now leads Channel Corporation’s AI business, centered on ALF, an AI agent designed to serve as a virtual salesperson for e-commerce brands.