Colin Lewis is joined by Anne-Claire Baschet, Chief Data and AI Officer at Mirakl, for a wide-ranging conversation about how AI and agentic commerce are fundamentally reshaping retail media.

Anne-Claire explains why “the personalisation you used to know is dead,” explores the dramatic shift from keyword search to intent-led discovery, and reveals how retailers can navigate a landscape where 60% of shoppers already use AI in their shopping journey. This episode unpacks the technical and strategic foundations retailers need to thrive when the disruptor becomes disrupted.

Key Discussions in This Episode

• Introduction and Anne-Claire’s Role at Mirakl (04:48–06:48) Anne-Claire describes her three-part role: empowering Mirakl employees to leverage AI, disrupting existing products with AI capabilities, and building solutions that help customers capitalise on agentic commerce opportunities.
• Defining AI and Agentic Commerce (06:48–09:42) Anne-Claire breaks down two core aspects of agentic commerce: shoppers using AI to discover and purchase products, and retailers using agents to accelerate operations. She discusses the evolution from today’s discovery tools to tomorrow’s autonomous purchasing agents that can hunt down rare items and complete transactions while you sleep.
• The Changing Shopper Funnel (09:42–12:26) How AI is already disrupting shopping behavior: 60% of shoppers now use AI at some stage of their journey, searches have expanded from 2-3 keywords to detailed, contextual descriptions, and organic traffic to e-commerce sites has declined 10% in the first half of 2025 as consumers find answers directly on AI platforms.
• Impact on Retail Media Revenue Models (14:02–18:53) The shift from keyword-based to intent-led search, with 37% of shoppers now using more than eight words in AI platform searches (up from just 4% in August 2024). Anne-Claire explains how retailers can leverage AI platforms as off-site placements, similar to Google Shopping, and create new sponsored placement opportunities within shopping agents.
• The Future of Search and Interaction (18:53–23:31) Moving beyond traditional keyword search to conversational, multi-turn discovery where shoppers may see only 2-3 featured products plus 7-9 additional options, all matched to intent rather than keywords. The critical importance of product content and embeddings over traditional keyword optimisation.
• Category-Specific Adoption Patterns (24:08–27:36) Discussion of how agentic commerce will capture significant goods transactions—McKinsey projects $1 trillion in the US and $3-5 trillion globally by 2030—with varying adoption rates across categories, price points, and demographics.
• The Death of Traditional Personalisation (28:48–31:10). Why “the personalisation you used to know is dead”: AI platforms already possess deep contextual knowledge about users that far exceeds traditional CRM and customer data platforms. The importance of enhancing product content to match shopper intent and problem-solving needs.
• Voice and Visual Search Adoption (31:10–34:25) Current trends indicate that shoppers prefer speaking to AI (typing while walking) over full voice conversations, as well as the significant adoption of visual search—photographing items to find matching products or even generating shopping lists from fridge contents.
• Building Shopping Agents: Retailer Strategies (34:25–37:39) How advanced US retailers are converging on unified customer-facing agents with specialised sub-agents behind the scenes handling specific tasks like inventory checking, customer service, and returns processing.
• Navigating a Rapidly Evolving Ecosystem (37:39–40:34). Why this isn’t a “winner takes all” situation, the parallels to the mid-1990s internet emergence, and the critical need for interoperability and an agentic client layer that can connect to multiple protocols and platforms as they evolve.
• Implications for Marketplaces (41:25–45:21). How curated marketplaces become even more valuable in an AI-driven discovery environment, the heightened importance of accurate pricing, availability, and delivery date promises, and why these fundamentals remain critical regardless of interface changes.
• Final Advice and Takeaways (45:21–46:52) Anne-Claire’s TLDR: Start experimenting now, understand how shopper behaviour is changing, build critical foundations, improve product content to match intent, and maintain marketplace fundamentals while testing new approaches.