How AI Is Reviving Customer Trust In E‑Commerce

Forbes

20-06-2025

As shoppers demand speed, clarity and confidence, AI-powered infrastructure is helping brands reduce ... More friction and rebuild trust — one checkout at a time.
When generative AI exploded into public view just over two years ago, few industries embraced it faster than e-commerce. From customer support chatbots to automated fulfillment tools, retailers rushed to integrate AI anywhere it could speed up decisions or reduce friction. And it's easy to see why.
In today's crowded online marketplace, trust doesn't come from flashy chatbots or even catchy marketing. It's earned when a customer clicks 'buy' and then receives exactly what they were promised — on time, intact and without confusing emails or hidden fees. When that promise is kept, trust grows. When it's broken, everything can change overnight.
In fact, according to data from global research firm Baymard Institute, nearly 70% of online shoppers abandon their carts before completing a purchase, often because of slow checkouts, surprise shipping costs, or technical glitches. That means three out of every five buyers leave right when brands are closest to sealing the deal.
But now, a host of AI-powered infrastructure tools — largely invisible to customers — are helping to eliminate customer distrust.
In dropshipping, it's one thing to list trending products, but inventory mishaps or pricing mistakes can ruin a customer's experience. That's where AI engines like those used by dropshipping platform company Autods come in. They monitor supplier stock in real time, recommend hot products before others jump in and even generate UGC-style product videos to help sellers promote items, all without costly video shoots.
Perhaps most critical are the built‑in guardrails to pause listings when data seems off. As Lior Pozin, CEO of Autods and recent Forbes 30 under 30 honoree, told me, 'automation without fallback logic, alert systems and customizable guardrails is a disaster waiting to happen.' With such guardrails in place, Pozin explained sellers only offer what's actually available, avoid mispriced items and sidestep poor reviews caused by avoidable shipping delays.
Lior Pozin, Autods CEO
While platforms like Autods aim to reduce risk before the sale ever happens, the exact moment of purchase — where a slow payment field, or payment integration issue, or even a broken coupon code can make a shopper leave the checkout page even if everything was working perfectly until they got there — presents another challenge. For instance, the report by Baymard Institute estimated that 48% of shoppers abandon carts when shipping costs are added late in the process.
Enter companies like checkout optimization platform provider PrettyDamnQuick, which use real‑time signals, including cart total, shopper location and past behavior, to dynamically adjust shipping options, upsells and delivery promises.
PrettyDamnQuick's CEO, Avi Moskowitz, explained that 'the moment of purchase is where trust is either cemented or lost,' adding that 'every glitch avoided is a sale saved and, over time, builds confidence.' He noted that the company's clients report higher average order value and reduced churn, proving the point that protecting checkout infrastructure actually boosts revenue.
Even when the checkout succeeds, fulfillment introduces its own risks and often, frustrations. Free shipping has become a baseline expectation: 80% of consumers look for it, and 66% expect it on every order, according to Baymard Institute's cart abandonment rate statistics. The stats also further showed that nearly half abandon their cart if extra delivery costs appear at checkout.
And even free shipping only works if it arrives when it's supposed to. As a report by McKinsey revealed, most consumers are willing to wait four to seven days for free shipping, as long as it's reliable. If deliveries duck out of promised windows, dissatisfaction, purchase returns and refund requests often follow.
That's where AI logistics tools like Shipium come into play. The company optimizes delivery routes, warehouse assignment and carrier choices — all in service of on-time, low-cost fulfillment. The payoff is fewer late deliveries, more predictable costs, and, most importantly, happier repeat customers.
Baymard Institute estimates $260 billion in lost orders across the U.S. and EU could be recovered by improving checkout flows alone. Free shipping — even with slightly slower delivery — can push cart completion rates and boost average order values by more than 10%. And it's in areas like this that automation and AI can decisively turn things around.
As Moskowitz noted, AI and automation are becoming essential allies for teams facing the chaos of modern digital retail. 'Today's environments are too complex and too fast-moving for manual rule-setting or reactive troubleshooting,' he told me.
'But with AI,' he continued, 'we can dynamically segment shoppers, personalize the checkout in real time and test dozens of hypotheses simultaneously, all without bogging down dev resources. That means less reliance on hard-coded logic and more adaptability to what's actually working.'
However, Pozin cautioned that automation can go too far, creating risk rather than value for users. This, he said, often happens especially early on, when some sellers blindly automate everything without understanding how it works — a sentiment that Moskowitz also agrees with.
'Automation handles scale and speed — humans bring the strategy. That's the balance,' Pozin noted.
The truth, according to these ecommerce experts, is that customers don't care whether you use AI or not. They care about whether you can deliver on your promise. And if you're able to use AI to do that more effectively, then they'll feel it when everything works.
If you're a retailer thinking about AI, the advice from Moskowitz is that you shouldn't start with chatbots or fancy front-ends. Start by asking: Do we catch inventory or pricing errors before they go live? Does our checkout experience crash-proof your sale? Can we guarantee delivery within promised windows, whether cheap or free?
If the answer is no, that's where your ROI truly lives; in reliability and simplicity that actually make trust stick. The point isn't blind automation. It's building systems so dependable, the customer barely notices until something goes wrong.
'When you automate — but add guardrails, monitoring and adaptability — you do more than save time. You build a brand that delivers, every time. And in the end, trust is what turns one-time buyers into lifelong customers,' said Pozin.