Question 1

How is AI changing e-commerce?

Accepted Answer

_Fine-tuned models, attribution, category death._

> To explore this question, I looked at one industry: e-commerce. In my online certificate programs, I've explored AI use cases across many industries such as healthcare, media, coffee, finance and e-commerce. While healthcare tends to be slowest to adopt AI, e-commerce consistently leads.

— [ShopTalk 2025: Just 1% Of Vendors Use Generative AI To The Max](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2025/03/21/state-of-genai--only-1---shoptalk-2025-in-numbers/) · _Forbes_

> AI is not adding a feature to the store, it is rebuilding the store around the shopper, and every part of the journey is shifting at once. Consider what is changing. Search is moving from a list of ranked links to a single synthesized answer. The shelf space is moving outside of retail, where answer engines, not retailers, decide what gets seen, and new advertising formats are forming around them, from paid LLM-embedded ads to…

— [Three Mistakes Brands Make In The Age Of AI-Driven E-Commerce](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2026/05/23/three-mistakes-brands-make-in-the-age-of-ai-driven-e-commerce/) · _Forbes_

Question 2

How is the Amazon homepage dying?

Accepted Answer

_Retail unbundling, AI assistants as the new aisle._

> The days of big online retail as we know it are over. Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy, and many others will all need to reinvent themselves as e-commerce changes. Once again, the homepage is dead. What will this mean for the big brands?

— [The End Of Amazon, Walmart, Best Buy? AI-Driven Retail Unbundling](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2025/06/30/the-end-of-amazon-walmart-best-buy---ai-driven-retail-unbundling/) · _Forbes_

> Now LLMs decide what gets recommended. I have argued that [Amazon's homepage is dying](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2025/06/30/the-end-of-amazon-walmart-best-buy---ai-driven-retail-unbundling/) and that retail is being unbundled the way media was a decade ago. To become visible, you need to be discovered by ChatGPT and Claude. A new discipline, GEO (Generative Engine Optimization), is replacing SEO (Search Engine…

— [The State Of E-Commerce: Every Layer Of Discovery Changed At Once](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/state-e-commerce-finetuned-ai-every-brand-lutz-finger-gs5bf/) · _linkedin_

Question 3

What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?

Accepted Answer

_Why being discoverable to AI assistants is the new SEO._

> For brands a new playbook is emerging: AEO. AEO is just the beginning.

— [Study Shows LLM Conversion Rate Is 9x Better — AEO Is Coming](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2025/06/19/study-shows-llm-conversion-rate-is-9x-better---aeo-is-coming/) · _Forbes_

> AEO is the practice of structuring content so that LLMs like ChatGPT can understand, reference and recommend your brand in response to user questions. To get picked up by an LLM, you need to understand how these models learn from content.

— [Answer Engine Optimization — What Brands Need To Know](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2025/06/19/answer-engine-optimization-aeo--what-brands-need-to-know/) · _Forbes_

Question 4

What mistakes do brands make in AI-driven e-commerce?

Accepted Answer

_Common pitfalls and how to avoid them._

> And underneath it all, brands risk losing their narrative to an intermediary that now owns the customer touchpoint. Having spent years building fine-tuned AI models for online retail, I keep watching e-commerce executives respond to all of this by making the same three mistakes. Each one is avoidable, and each one is expensive.

— [Three Mistakes Brands Make In The Age Of AI-Driven E-Commerce](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2026/05/23/three-mistakes-brands-make-in-the-age-of-ai-driven-e-commerce/) · _Forbes_

> AI is not bolting features onto the old store, it is rebuilding the store around the shopper. Every layer is collapsing into the one thing brands actually own, their shopper-behavior data and the fine-tuned AI it makes possible. Three shifts, and the mistake brands keep making in each: 1. **GEO:** brands flood the web with slop. 2. **The end of the website:** brands bolt on chatbots. 3. **Better search:** brands override the rankings…

— [The State Of E-Commerce: Every Layer Of Discovery Changed At Once](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/state-e-commerce-finetuned-ai-every-brand-lutz-finger-gs5bf/) · _linkedin_

Question 5

What replaces SEO in the LLM era?

Accepted Answer

_Strategies for being discoverable to AI assistants._

> But based on research I conducted with Cornell Master's students, that shift is happening much faster. LLM-driven traffic is already starting to outperform traditional search — not in volume, but in value. Traffic from LLMs converts at nearly 9x higher rates than traditional search. This is the biggest disruption to search since the dawn of the internet.

— [Study Shows LLM Conversion Rate Is 9x Better — AEO Is Coming](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2025/06/19/study-shows-llm-conversion-rate-is-9x-better---aeo-is-coming/) · _Forbes_

> And that memory shapes future recommendations. Monitoring any LLM answers misses the point. To fully understand how your brand is being represented, you'd have to know the personalized memory of every single user — an impossible task for any dashboard. Best Measurement Of LLM Traffic: just watch your traffic.

— [Answer Engine Optimization — What Brands Need To Know](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2025/06/19/answer-engine-optimization-aeo--what-brands-need-to-know/) · _Forbes_

Question 6

Why do LLMs convert better than search?

Accepted Answer

_Trust, personalization, and conversion lift from AI traffic._

> Some predict that by 2028, more people will discover products and information through large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Gemini than through traditional search engines. But based on research I conducted with Cornell Master's students, that shift is happening much faster. LLM-driven traffic is already starting to outperform traditional search — not in volume, but in value.

— [Study Shows LLM Conversion Rate Is 9x Better — AEO Is Coming](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2025/06/19/study-shows-llm-conversion-rate-is-9x-better---aeo-is-coming/) · _Forbes_

> The latest wave includes dashboards designed to track your brand's presence across ChatGPT, Perplexity and other platforms. But here's the problem: LLMs don't behave like search engines. They remember. Google would always return the same results, even if you had already clicked those links before.

— [Answer Engine Optimization — What Brands Need To Know](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2025/06/19/answer-engine-optimization-aeo--what-brands-need-to-know/) · _Forbes_

Question 7

Why does e-commerce need fine-tuned AI?

Accepted Answer

_Why general-purpose LLMs aren't enough._

> To explore this question, I looked at one industry: e-commerce. In my online certificate programs, I've explored AI use cases across many industries such as healthcare, media, coffee, finance and e-commerce. While healthcare tends to be slowest to adopt AI, e-commerce consistently leads.

— [ShopTalk 2025: Just 1% Of Vendors Use Generative AI To The Max](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2025/03/21/state-of-genai--only-1---shoptalk-2025-in-numbers/) · _Forbes_

> Google's search is losing relevance for e-commerce, and Amazon's homepage is losing traffic. The future belongs to AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity. For brands to stay visible, they must embrace generative engine optimization, also called large language model optimization or answer engine optimization.

— [AI Is Changing The Rules Of Web Traffic — A GEO Playbook For Online Retailers](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lutzfinger/2025/08/20/generative-engine-optimization-geo-a-playbook-for-online-retailers/) · _Forbes_

Q&A, E-commerce

How is AI changing e-commerce?

How is the Amazon homepage dying?

What is Generative Engine Optimization (GEO)?

What mistakes do brands make in AI-driven e-commerce?

What replaces SEO in the LLM era?

Why do LLMs convert better than search?

Why does e-commerce need fine-tuned AI?