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AI deal-hunting is the new customer experience test for retailers

Retailers will keep competing hard on price, especially as shoppers become more cautious about where they spend. But a discount alone does not create a strong customer experience.

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September 29, 2026 by Romain Fouache — CEO, Akeneo

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Retailers keep finding new ways to compete on price. They are lowering prices across thousands of products, matching competitors in real time, and introducing discounts ahead of major promotional events. It's a reasonable strategy, given how value-conscious shoppers have become, but price is no longer the whole story. Shoppers are more cautious than they used to be, and they are actively testing whether a deal is what it claims to be.

Akeneo found that 62% of consumers check prices across retailers before buying, while only 9% trust a deal without checking other options first. Increasingly, during this era of agentic commerce, AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini are becoming part of this deal navigation process, acting less like search engines and more like deal-savvy shopping assistants. That creates a new dilemma for retailers: price may earn a shopper's attention, but AI is starting to shape which retailer earns their confidence and, ultimately, their purchase.

AI is becoming part of the customer journey

AI's influence on retail doesn't necessarily mean autonomous purchases. It typically shows up earlier, when a consumer is deciding which products and retailers are worth considering. Akeneo found that 43% of consumers have used AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini to help with shopping or finding deals, and 22% have already purchased a product based on AI recommendations.

When searching for a new product, it's no surprise that price matters, but so do the dimensions, compatibility, warranty terms, and, of course, reviews about the quality of the product. AI tools are already weighing all of these attributes before the consumer ever lands on a retailer's site. That's the shift. AI doesn't need to autonomously complete the transaction to shape it. It can analyze which products make it into a consumer's consideration before they ever reach checkout. To put it simply, AI is becoming the layer between seeing a promotion and deciding whether it's worth purchasing.

Deal events are now customer-experience stress tests

During deal day windows like Amazon Prime Day, retailers move fast, prices shift, inventory turns over, bundles get assembled, and delivery promises change by the hour. All of that product information has to remain consistent across websites, apps, and marketplaces to allow AI tools to not just perform successfully, but to make them a viable option to fill the consumer with confidence during their purchasing journey.

When it doesn't, the cracks show in many ways. An AI summary cites a specification that's already outdated. A bundle doesn't clearly say what's included. A product appears available in one channel and sold out in another. Reviews reference a previous model. Sizing or compatibility information is simply missing. None of these are dramatic failures on their own, but during a major deal event, incomplete product information turns urgency into uncertainty. The result: shoppers hesitate, go elsewhere to verify or move on to a competitor whose offer is clearer and better defined.

Trust has become part of the value equation

Consumers are no longer defining value as the lowest price alone. Value now includes confidence that a product fits their needs, information that holds up under scrutiny, reviews that feel credible, availability that's accurate, and delivery and return terms that are clear upfront.

Product information has to explain why an offer is worth taking. A promotion may be the headline, but product information is what proves the value. That means details like materials, durability, dimensions, compatibility, warranty coverage, included accessories, and return conditions have become critical to the decision. For wary shoppers, trust has quietly become part of how value gets calculated.

3 priorities for retailers in the second half of 2026

Retailers don't need to rebuild everything before the next deal event. Trying to fix every product page at once is a good way to fix none of them well, cutting into the team's hours, forcing them to complete dysfunctional manual work. What matters is knowing which products and moments shoppers prioritize most, and making sure the information is sustained there. The three priorities that matter most:

1. Audit the journeys that count: Focus on promoted products, seasonal categories, frequently compared items, and anything with a high return rate. Test how priority products appear when consumers use AI tools to compare price, features, reviews, and suitability.
2. Make the decision-critical details easy to find: Size, materials, compatibility, warranty terms, and what's actually included in a bundle shouldn't be buried inside a long description. Organize them so both shoppers and AI tools can find them quickly.
3. Keep the experience synchronized: Price, product details, availability, reviews, and promotional messaging need to tell the same story throughout the shopping journey. Customer questions, reviews and return reasons are a direct feedback loop for where that story is breaking down, and retailers should use those signals to improve product information continuously. That also requires merchandising, e-commerce, IT and customer experience teams to work from the same product truth rather than updating each channel in isolation.

Confidence is the new competitive edge

Retailers will keep competing hard on price, especially as shoppers become more cautious about where they spend. But a discount alone does not create a strong customer experience. With the holiday shopping season approaching, retailers face one of their biggest tests of the year: more promotions, seasonal discounts, faster inventory changes, and more consumers using AI to compare products before they buy. Every inconsistency gives shoppers another reason to hesitate or look elsewhere.

Retailers need every holiday offer to be accurate, understandable, and easy to trust wherever shoppers, or their AI tools, encounter it. Price may bring a shopper into the journey, but during the busiest and most competitive shopping season of the year, confidence is what carries them through it.

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About Romain Fouache

Romain Fouache is the CEO of Akeneo. Romain is as passionate about technology as he is about solving customers' biggest problems, and brings more than 20 years of experience scaling category-defining B2B technology companies. Most recently, he led operations and sales as COO and then CRO of the leading AI software vendor Dataiku. Romain is a graduate of École Centrale Paris and holds an MBA from NYU Stern.

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