Brand First: How Retailers Win Hearts, Wallets & The Algorithm
Showing up where your shoppers actually look has always been tough—and today it's tougher. Search isn't what it used to be; you can't rely on keywords, links, or banner noise to climb the results. Discovery now flows across search engines, social feeds, retail media networks, marketplaces, and AI assistants that stitch signals together in real time. In this AI‑curated path to purchase, retailers win by being smarter—not louder—through structured data, credible content, and a clear, consistent brand that shoppers trust and algorithms surface.
Generative AI enters the conversation
Generative AI (gen AI) is reimagining the digital shopping experience by making the product search experience conversational. It used to be that consumers searched for a brand or a product by using brand names, or information such as pricing to pull up results. But now, they can ask for advice and recommendations.
Accenture's recently published Consumer Pulse Survey of more than 18,000 people across 14 countries, found that approximately half of consumers have made a purchase decision with the support of gen AI—making it the fastest-growing source of buying advice in the past year. And for active users— defined as people using gen AI tools at least weekly for personal and/or professional reasons, it's now the second highest source for product recommendations after physical stores.
The survey also found gen AI is no longer just a tool for speed and personalization—it's becoming a confidant and trusted advisor. Accenture's survey found that more than one-third (36%) of active gen AI users now consider the technology 'a good friend,' with a large proportion (93%) relying on it for personal development advice and 1 in 10 calling it their most trusted source for purchase decisions.
When consumers trust AI as they would a close friend, every interaction becomes an opportunity to deepen—or lose—that relationship.
Personalized recommendations
A great example of tapping AI to deeper consumer relationships is AI-powered multi-brand beauty startup, Noli, founded and backed by the L'Oréal Groupe. Noli—which stands for (No One Like I')—is on a mission to empower every beauty consumer with their own intelligent, trusted advisor.
Noli is reinventing how people discover and shop beauty products by addressing the number one pain point for beauty customers—too many options, and lack of unbiased, often conflicting, advice in the market.
Noli cuts through the beauty noise with AI diagnostics trained on 1M+ skin data points and thousands of product formulations. It decodes each user's beauty profile and delivers confident product picks to their door. Co‑Founder & CEO Amos Susskind says, 'Beauty is full of choice, opinions, claims, noise, and emotional stakes, making it the perfect category for personalization and expert guidance.'
Master the large language model ecosystem
It is easy to see how large language models (LLMs) are fast becoming the new influencers. According to Accenture's survey consumers are already using gen AI to inform purchase decisions, making it the fastest-growing source for recommendations.
To avoid being misrepresented, or excluded from consumer consideration entirely, retailers need to take an active role in the LLM ecosystem – a network of models, platforms, and data sources.
Winning now means optimizing for Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) as well as classic SEO—because AI assistants don't crawl, index, and rank like traditional search; they synthesize, summarize, and represent your brand.
Feed them structured, high‑quality, rights‑cleared content that's current and consistent; refresh it often; tag it so context is clear; and monitor AI surfaces to correct drift. Do that, and your brand story shows up accurately—and gets recommended—across AI chats, agents, and shoppable answers.
Prepare for Agentic Personal Shoppers
Then there's the newer member of the AI family, agentic AI, a technology that can act autonomously on behalf of consumers—making purchases without the traditional shopping journey. In fact, 75% of consumers told Accenture they are open to using a trusted AI-powered personal shopper that understands their needs.
When shoppers delegate decisions to agentic shopping agents, AI effectively becomes the buyer of record. Traditional retail media—banner ads, paid search slots, even your website—can be skipped as agents source the 'best fit' directly from data feeds, reviews, inventory, and price APIs. That's the threat: a frictionless race to the lowest acceptable price.
The opportunity? Make sure your brand carries machine‑readable reasons to choose you—quality signals, experience benefits, sustainability creds, fit/usage guidance, service guarantees—that matter to humans and to their agents. Give AI more to weigh than price, and you stay in the basket.
The trust imperative
Consumers are sceptical: 41% say AI content can feel inauthentic and 45% say it lacks a human touch (Accenture). Trust hinges on transparent, consent‑based data use—shoppers are used to tuning their own recommendation feeds and don't want their data repurposed in ways that surprise them.
Protect that trust with strong cybersecurity and data governance. Keep humans in the loop so AI reflects brand values and delivers the service customers expect. The win: AI experiences that are personal and trustworthy sustained by ongoing investment in tech, training, and teams that keep great retail brands real.
The time to act is now
The investments retailers and brands make today will determine whether they remain visible, relevant, and indispensable in an AI-driven world of tomorrow. While some retailers debate whether to embrace AI, others are already reshaping the industry by using AI to become more empathetic, more responsive, and more valuable to consumers than ever before. But they'll do so while maintaining the human touch—be that the store associate or customer service agent—that makes brands memorable and meaningful. The question is: will your brand be among them?
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
3 minutes ago
- Forbes
Google Photos Introduces New AI Tools: Fun, Free, And Very Limited
Google is adding new generative AI tools to Google Photos, shifting the app away from its original ... More purpose. Key Takeaways Google Photos could be at the start of a radical transformation. In a major update rolling out now, Google is introducing what could be the most significant Google Photos AI upgrade yet, allowing you to turn static images into animated video clips and stylized art with just a few taps. The tools are free and fun, but are deliberately and severely limited -- and in many ways, that's a good thing. Google's Remix feature turns still images into fun videos with AI. The Big Update: Photo To Video — Fun But Deliberately Nerfed As I previously reported, Google Photos is introducing a game-changing new feature that transforms still photos into short video clips with a single tap. It's a powerful, but significantly cut-down version of the photo-to-video features already available to paying Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers in Gemini. You can select any picture in your Google Photos library, choose between the vague 'Subtle movement' or slot-machine-like 'I'm feeling lucky' options, and wait for about a minute for the video animation to generate. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder Google's demos show once static people now celebrating by throwing handfuls of confetti in the air before it tumbles back down from above. These were both generated in 'I'm feeling lucky,' mode. I presume additional video effects will be available at launch and more added in the future. If you don't like the results, you can hit the Regenerate button to try again, but that's about it for user control. You can also tap on thumbs-up or thumbs-down icons to send feedback to Google. It would be great to see a few more preset options available, beyond just subtle movements or a random effect. Even adding just a few more emotions would make these clips useful as fun reactions for messaging apps, etc, in place of emojis or pre-made GIFs. The process takes up to a minute to complete, and you The focus here is clearly on fun rather than unbridled creativity. Where Gemini utilizes Google's powerful Veo3 video AI model to create animations of anything you want, Google Photos employs the older Veo 2 model, offering very little user control over what happens in the animation, except for repeatedly hitting the 'Regenerate' button. Furthermore, Veo 2 cannot generate audio, one of the standout features of Veo 3. Remix Your Photos — Too Little, Too Late? First discovered in May of this year, the new 'Remix' feature allows you to select a photo and transform it into a range of artistic styles, including cartoons, pencil sketches, and paintings. Google Photos Remix feature lets you transform photos into a range of artistic styles. As with the Photo to Video feature above, you can hit Regenerate to re-try any pictures you don't like and tap one of the thumb icons to provide feedback. Remix is clearly aimed at having fun and sharing moments in new ways, and there's nothing wrong with that. The results are Google's answer to the viral 'Ghliblified' images and action figure pictures you've probably seen taking over social media. However, unlike powerful tools like ChatGPT or Midjourney where you can simply type in any style imaginable, Remix forces you to pick from a small menu of pre-selected styles. The approach helps keep generated output safe for consumption, but also prevents any real creativity. Google will need to update the library of styles frequently or the novelty will wear off quickly. A New Direction For Google Photos — The Create Tab To make Google Photos' new generative tools easier to find, Google is introducing a new 'Create' tab, accessible by clicking an icon at the bottom of the app on both Android and iOS. Here, you'll be able to find all of Google Photos' creative tools gathered in one place, effectively separating the newer creative side of Google Photos from its original library functions. Google Photos introduces a new "Create" tab to house all of its new generative AI tools. This marks the beginning of a significant shift in purpose for Google Photos, as Google notes, it's now 'more than an archive, it's a canvas.' Personally, that's not what I want from Google Photos; I use it as a place to store and revisit memories rather than as a tool to create new content. The app's existing Animated slide shows and collages use AI to enhance memories, but these new tools alter them into something entirely new, creating video clips of events that never really happened. Google Photos Now Creates, But Is It Safe? Google appears to be exercising considerable caution with these new features, not least by severely limiting the scope of what can be created with these new Google Photos tools. However, the company acknowledges that the results may be 'inaccurate or unexpected' and displays a warning before use, along with a link to its GenAI prohibited use policy. Furthermore, all images and videos generated by Google Photos using AI contain invisible SynthID watermarks that reveal their synthetic origins. The Big Issue: US-Only Rollout Alienates Global Users Photo to Video and Remix are now rolling out on Android and iOS, but are currently only available in the US. The Create tab will then roll out in August, but once again, only in the US. This will be disappointing for international users, who may have to wait a considerable amount of time to access the new features. Remember, Google Photos users outside the US are still waiting for access to the AI-powered 'Ask Photos' feature nine months after launch. Google Photos has a massive worldwide user base, with billions of photos and videos uploaded each week, and runs the risk of frustrating a colossal number of customers if non-US customers remain excluded from its best features. Follow @paul_monckton on Instagram.
Bloomberg
5 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Goldman's Asset Arm Says Emerging Markets Catching Only ‘First Wave' of Flows
Emerging markets are set for further gains as renewed appetite for diversification and light positioning bolster the case for the asset class, which has been marred by years of outflows, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. 's asset-management division. 'The flow tide is turning — and we believe EM is catching the first wave,' said Anupam Damani, co-head of emerging-market debt at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. 'After years of being sidelined by US-centric risk taking, diversification is quietly reclaiming its place in global portfolios.'
Android Authority
32 minutes ago
- Android Authority
Samsung may be killing bootloader unlocking on all phones with One UI 8
Joe Maring / Android Authority TL;DR Samsung appears to be disabling bootloader unlocking in One UI 8 on more devices than before. Previously, only US models lacked the OEM Unlock toggle, but the restriction now seems to be spreading to global models as well. A contributor on XDA Developers discovered that Samsung is likely stripping out the necessary code to unlock bootloaders entirely. Samsung might be quietly locking down its phones even more tightly with the One UI 8 update. A new report from an XDA Developers contributor reveals that Samsung appears to be removing the ability to unlock the bootloader on more devices, including international versions that previously supported it. Samsung phones in the US already lack the 'OEM Unlocking' toggle in Developer Options, effectively preventing users from unlocking the bootloader and installing custom ROMs. But now, it looks like that restriction could apply globally. What's changed? The contributor, salvo_giangri, discovered that Samsung has added a line to the device's bootloader configuration: This line tells the Android system whether the device is allowed to unlock the bootloader. If it's set to 1, the Settings app won't even show the OEM Unlock option, which is the first step in unlocking a phone. In the latest One UI 8 firmware, this line is present even on non-US devices, indicating that the restriction is no longer region-specific. We checked and can confirm that our non-US Galaxy Z Fold 7 does not have the 'OEM Unlocking' toggle in Developer Options. Some folks think this could be a mistake on Samsung's part. However, those running the One UI 8 beta build also report that the option is missing from their devices. Unlocking the bootloader is essential for enthusiasts and developers who want to install custom ROMs or kernels, gain full root access to their devices, or further customize their phones. If you're someone who loves customizing your phone or values the freedom to tinker with Android, then this is a significant step back from Samsung. Anyone planning to update to One UI 8 or buy a new Samsung device running Android 16 should know that this restriction may apply to their devices. That said, we'll reach out to Samsung for an official confirmation on the matter. For now, the bootloader on your current Samsung devices that are not running One UI 8 should still be unlockable, but with new updates and devices, that may no longer be the case.
