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Guides on AI tools and automation for ecommerce.

Articles on AI for ecommerce merchants, covering tax automation, product imaging, SEO auditing, and AI search visibility.

Latest industry news

What changed, as it happens.

Tracked daily from primary sources. The items below are what we're watching for clients right now.

  1. Agentic Commerce

    Lantern launches a platform that scores how AI shopping portals read your catalog

    Lantern released a platform that uses AI agents to predict how AI shopping portals interpret a merchant’s product catalog, flag visibility constraints, and apply fixes, with an “agent-readiness score” to gauge how well a catalog surfaces in AI-driven shopping. It’s part of a fast-growing category built around making product data legible to AI buyers.Practical Ecommerce →

  2. AI Tools · SEO

    Alli AI ships a WordPress plugin that serves AI crawlers a pre-rendered HTML copy

    Alli AI launched a WordPress plugin that serves AI crawlers a fully pre-rendered HTML version of each page — while human visitors see the normal site — and auto-deploys structured data site-wide. It’s a bet that AI-crawler-specific rendering is worth the parallel-version maintenance Google’s own team keeps cautioning against.Practical Ecommerce →

  3. Agentic Commerce · Data

    BigCommerce/PayPal survey: shoppers want AI to help them discover, not buy for them

    A BigCommerce and PayPal survey of ~3,000 consumers across the US, UK, and Australia found about two-thirds interested in agentic shopping tools — but with a strong preference for AI handling product discovery rather than autonomous purchasing. Fraud protection and purchase confirmation topped the list of trust requirements.BigCommerce →

  4. Agentic Commerce

    Square launches ChatGPT and Claude integrations so AI can order from its sellers

    Square released a ChatGPT app and a Claude plugin that let AI platforms discover Square sellers and place orders, starting with US food-and-beverage merchants and with no added marketplace commission. Square is also working with Amazon on an Alexa+ integration and sits on the AAIF, W3C, and UCP standards groups — another platform wiring its catalog into AI checkout.Digital Commerce 360 →

  5. AI Agents

    Klaviyo moves its marketing and service AI agents to public beta

    Klaviyo pushed two AI agents to public beta: Composer, a campaign builder, and Customer Agent, a service-automation tool, with real-time customer data shared between them. Early-access brands include Spanx and Dermalogica.Digital Commerce 360 →

All AI & Ecommerce news
AI & Ecommerce

Guides, fundamentals & FAQ

Deep dives, explainers, and the questions clients ask most.

New · June 2026

Agentic Commerce: Universal Cart & WebMCP

Google's cross-merchant cart launches summer 2026, information agents watch the web on buyers' behalf, and Chrome 149 opened the WebMCP trial. What your store needs to participate.

Read the guide →
AI search optimization

GEO & AEO Explained

Generative Engine Optimization and Answer Engine Optimization — what they are, how they differ from classic SEO, and what ecommerce stores need to do to show up in AI-generated answers.

AI-ready SEO service →
Case study: B2B tax automation

Avalara CertCapture Automation

How we automated 100% of resale certificate management for a national B2B distributor — self-serve upload, auto-approval, HMAC-verified webhooks, Redis cache, full audit log.

Read the case study →
Case study: product imaging at scale

AI Product Image Generation

How Avantix Imager renders 1,240 SKUs and 8,400 variants with AI-generated backgrounds, lifestyle contexts, and polished PDP-ready hero images — at a fraction of traditional photography cost.

Read the case study →
Case study: automated GEO audits

AI SEO & GEO Auditing

How our AI Site Auditor runs 8-point GEO/SEO checks on any URL — AI-readability, schema gaps, entity clarity, AI bot access, performance, and sitemap hygiene — powered by Gemini 2.x.

Read the case study →
Build vs. buy

Custom AI Apps for Ecommerce

When to build a custom AI app vs. use a SaaS tool, how to scope the build, what makes a production-grade AI integration vs. a prototype, and typical timelines and costs.

Custom AI Apps hub →
The llms.txt standard

llms.txt & AI Search Visibility

The emerging standard that helps LLMs crawl and cite your site. How to write one, where to place it, and why it matters for agencies and merchants competing for AI Overview real estate.

GEO service →

Custom ecommerce engineering, AI apps, and SEO — typically 60–80% less than traditional agency pricing.

20+ years of BigCommerce engineering, now AI-augmented. Tell us your store, your stack, and your deadline — we quote fixed scope on the first call.

Free Site Audit → Explore AI Apps