E-commerce technology trends that will shape the future

The technology changing e-commerce most right now is AI. Shoppers ask assistants to find, compare and even buy products for them, and retailers are being asked to supply richer product data so those assistants can do it. Around that sit five other trends: mobile-first shopping, AI-powered product visualisation, shoppable video, personalisation built on first-party data, and accessibility rules that now apply to online shops in the EU.

Online retail keeps growing its share of the market. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated e-commerce sales of $340.2 billion in the second quarter of 2026, seasonally adjusted, which was 17.1% of all retail sales. Here is what is shaping the next stage.

1. AI shopping assistants and agentic checkout

A few years ago the big prediction was voice search through Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant. That idea has grown into something larger: AI assistants that hold a conversation about what the buyer needs, compare options and complete the purchase. This is often called agentic commerce.

The plumbing for it is being built now:

• Google's Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), announced in January 2026, is an open standard for discovery, buying and post-purchase support. Google said it would power checkout on eligible product listings in AI Mode in Search and the Gemini app, starting with eligible U.S. retailers, who remain the seller of record.
• Google's Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), announced in September 2025, uses signed "mandates" to prove that a user really authorised an agent to buy a specific item at a specific price.
• The Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), released by Stripe and OpenAI in September 2025, powers Instant Checkout in ChatGPT. At launch it was available to U.S. users buying from U.S. Etsy sellers.

What to do: treat your product feed as a sales channel. Complete product titles, attributes, prices, stock levels and answers to common product questions help assistants pick you. Google added dozens of new Merchant Center attributes for this purpose. For your own site, Google says there is no special optimisation needed to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode beyond normal SEO best practice, so keep pages indexable and genuinely helpful.

2. Product customisation

Letting buyers configure a product, from colour and size to engraving or bundle contents, reduces the time spent hunting for the exact item they want. It also gives you clear data on what people prefer. Start small: offer the two or three options customers ask for most, show a preview of the result and make delivery times clear for made-to-order items.

3. Mobile first, in shopping and in search

Mobile is no longer a trend; it is the default. Google uses the mobile version of a site's content, crawled with its smartphone crawler, for indexing and ranking. If your mobile product pages hide content, load slowly or make checkout awkward, you lose both sales and search visibility.

Check that mobile pages show the same product information, reviews and structured data as desktop, that forms are easy to fill on a phone, and that wallets and saved payment methods are offered at checkout. Our guide to Google's Core Web Vitals covers the speed side.

4. Product visualisation with AR and AI try-on

Product images have moved from one blurry photo to galleries, 360-degree views, 3D models and augmented reality. The newest step uses generative AI. Google's apparel virtual try-on shows clothing on real models from XXS to XXXL, with AI showing how the garment drapes and stretches on different bodies. Brands with a Shopping feed and high-quality images are opted in automatically, and the feature adds a "virtual try-on" badge in free listings and Shopping ads.

What to do: invest in clean, high-resolution product photography. Google's guidance asks for images of at least 512 by 512 pixels, ideally 1024 or more, showing one garment on a front-facing model or laid flat. Good source images also feed 3D and AR tools.

5. Personalisation built on first-party data

Personalisation still pays when it is based on what customers actually do with you: the channels they arrive from, the products they view, what they buy and when they abandon a cart. Connect your store, analytics and CRM so you can segment customers, for example by price sensitivity or purchase frequency, and send relevant offers.

Collect that data with consent and care. Under the GDPR, personal data must be collected for specific, stated purposes, limited to what is needed and kept no longer than necessary. Our guide on how to personalise your website shows practical ways to start.

6. Shoppable video and social commerce

Short video is where many people discover products, and platforms now let viewers buy without leaving the video. On YouTube, creators in the Shopping affiliate program can tag products in videos and Shorts. Viewers check out on the retailer's site, and the creator earns a commission. The program requires the channel to be in the YouTube Partner Program and is open in 18 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and India.

What to do: create short videos of your best-selling products, such as demos, unboxings and comparisons, and work with creators whose audience matches your buyers. See our YouTube marketing strategies for ideas.

7. Accessibility becomes a legal requirement

This trend was not on the list a few years ago. The European Accessibility Act covers e-commerce services, and new products and services in its scope must be accessible from 28 June 2025. It applies to web shops and online marketplaces that sell to consumers in the EU. Microenterprises providing services, with fewer than 10 staff and no more than 2 million euros in annual turnover or balance sheet, are exempt.

The common benchmark for accessible websites is the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, now at version 2.2. Accessible shops also work better for everyone: clear labels, keyboard-friendly checkout and good contrast reduce drop-off. Read why you should prioritise web accessibility.

How should you prepare?

You do not need every trend at once. Pick the ones closest to revenue:

1. Clean up your product data and feeds, because AI assistants, Shopping ads and try-on features all depend on them.
2. Audit the mobile experience from product page to payment.
3. Check your site against WCAG 2.2 if you sell in the EU.
4. Test one new channel, such as shoppable video, and measure it.

For tactics to turn these trends into sales, see growth hacking for e-commerce and e-commerce trends to follow.