Name: Closing the AI discovery gap: how retailers can become the answer
Uploaded: 2026-09-22T12:01:07.512Z
Duration: 45 min 16 s
Description: Closing the AI discovery gap: how retailers can become the answer

Transcript for "Closing the AI discovery gap: how retailers can become the answer": Hi, everyone. Gonna give it a few minutes for people to join. We'd love to know where people are joining from today, so get involved in the chat. Hi, Anna from Manchester. Welcome. Coming in thick and fast now. Lisbon. Very nice. Welcome. Good to be in Lisbon right now. The Weybridge, not too far from where I was where I grew up. Brighton. I'm glad to see lots of places are sunny. That's always good to hear, isn't it? And people from far and wide. Welcome. Give people a couple more minutes to join before we jump in. Germany. I'm off to Germany next week. Very exciting. So maybe give it another minute more before we kick off today. Sure people are just grabbing a bite or a coffee or something to sit down with. K. A few more people joining. Oh, leafy Cheshire. Great. I think we can probably, get cracking then. So, yep, welcome, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. Over the next forty five minutes, we are gonna be looking at one of the biggest shifts in how shoppers discover products that we've seen in years. So this is the move from traditional keyword search, to using conversational language and AI tools to have recommendations handed to shoppers. I'm Alex Jones. I'm client success manager here at Bazaarvoice. I've been with the business for around five years partnering with our most strategic retailers. And I'm really happy to be joined by Richard Lim, CEO of Retail Economics, one of the most respected independent voices in UK retail. We'll keep we're gonna keep it conversational today, and we've saved some time at the end for your questions. So do please pop them into the q and a box, and we can get to those at the end. But, Richard, over to you to, introduce yourself. Brilliant. Thank you, Alex. I'm Richard Lim, CEO of Retail Economics. We're an independent economics consultancy with a laser like focus on consumer and retail. Great. Thank you. So before we jump in, we're actually gonna start with a poll. So we're gonna pop that up on the screen for you, to make your answers. So please do vote, on that poll. And the question is, should have that up on the screen. So have you checked whether AI tools are currently, recommending your product? So please vote, yes, no, or didn't know I could. So we're getting a lot of yeses, which is good. But, also, if you didn't know I could, that's always really good to to know. Also some nos there. So, hopefully, you're gonna hear a bit more about that today, and get some tips on how you can, start to see sort of how you're showing up in there. Right. So I think we can probably, jump in, and I'll hand over to you, Richard, to set the scene. Brilliant. Thank you so much, Alex. So the plan for this afternoon, depending on where you join from, is to run you through how we see the industry changing at the moment in terms of that shift towards, Agenci Commerce. So I'm gonna run through a few slides. It's gonna be quite fast paced, so I'm gonna aim to keep this within about twelve, thirty minutes, something like that. But just to give you our view of what's happening in history, because I think at the moment, Agenci Commerce is probably the hottest topic in town and certainly reflects the majority of conversations that I'm having with our clients in the industry. But just as before we start, I wanted to add with a bit of, start with a bit of context because the reality is the industry is changing at warp speed at the moment. And if you think about how the industry has changed over the last thirty years or so, it's almost unrecognizable compared to where we are today. If you go back to the mid nineteen, nineteen nineties, then, of course, the retail experience all revolved around the single store. And so the experiences around the single store and if you wanted to buy a product, you'd probably go to your local town center, go into a store, see what products were available, and it was very one dimensional. You fast forward ten years from that, and so in the kind of 2000 around 2005, this is when retailers were first started to experiment with their ecommerce website that was very disjointed with the, with the physical and digital channel. You fast forward another ten years from there, and this is where the mobile phone started to be the glue that allowed consumers to bounce between digital and physical channel, channels on that path to purchase. Another ten years from then and move into this phase of unified commerce where retail brands were looking at all of the different sources of data that sat across their business, whether that was information about their customers, information about sales, information about kind of their product information or sustainability information, but bringing all of that information into one place to try to provide a more cohesive customer journey, for their for their customers. And then where we are now is we're just about to embark onto this stage of agentic commerce. What I would add is that for each of those ten year periods, for each of those decades that have passed, it's not a linear progression. The complexity of the industry has accelerated almost exponentially. And so where we're going, in terms of AgenT eCommerce is going to add more complexity, more fragmentation across discovery, research, and purchase. And so it's going to take, you know, it's gonna take a a a a a a it's gonna take So the first, area is off-site AI. And so off-site AI is an example where consumers are using platforms like ChachiPT, Claw, Gemini, Perplexity, all of these other LLL platforms to help assist with their per within that kind of discovery research stage mainly. And so this is, you know, thinking about by purchasing a a television, for example, going on to ChatChiPT and going in saying, I'm looking for a TV that's a particular price, a particular brand, particular screen size. You might want next day delivery. You might want free returns, but essentially using all of that information and then the l and m platform surfacing options at that particular point in time. Also, think about agentic around kind of AI agents on-site as well. So that's the middle column here. But, essentially, consumers going on to, going on to AUI agent to discover and research particular products. So the example here of Rufus on Amazon, but you might go on to Amazon, go use Rufus as their AUI agent and then set some specific search criteria. So again it might be I'm looking for a TV under a thousand pounds whatever kind of brand it might be and then Rufus going through and surfacing some options for you but within the product category on a particular website. And we've seen this, we've seen this explode across other retailers as well. So Next have launched an AI agent on their site. B and Q have got an AI agent. Lenovo has got an AI agent. So this is becoming more popular. We've then also got agentic browsers. So an example at the end where you've got, Comet that was launched by Perplexity. Essentially, an AI agent that's embedded within a browser. And so you can go on to a website. Let's just say you go on to Next or M and S and you then you can use the, agentic, use the AI agent on a browser to do things like search for returns policy as an example. But, of course, this is exploding across other, other browsers. So it's on Edge with Microsoft, but then increasingly, we're seeing more of an agentic search experience on Google and on Chrome as well. So there's gonna be lots of developments in this area. But the reality is that consumers are using, LLM platforms to discover and search for products. What our data shows is that 70% of consumers have used an AI platform over the last twelve months. So this might be using it to discover, products. It might be for a holiday itinerary. It might be to write a poem for your 10 year old daughter for her birthday. But it's using l and m L and M's for lots of different, for lots of different purposes, but 70% using it, today already. Almost 40% have used it specifically for retail purposes. And you can see on the right hand side here, the most common uses are around saving time, finding prices, or finding the best price, but also help on technical products as well. So consumers are using the platforms. It is causing a significant disruption in terms of that discovery and research part of the customer journey, and it's being used for specific purposes. What's interesting is that it's going to look uneven across different parts of the sector as well. And so you've got some areas, whether it's the customer journey or it's the sector, where the impact of AI and this, this use of AI across research discovery and eventually purchase is going to be is going to look uneven across different sectors, across different shop emissions, across different price points. And it's and and our view is that, that there are areas like electrical appliances, clothing and footwear, food and grocery where it's likely to see the biggest impact to the greatest extent and this might be sooner rather than other categories. And if you take electricals as an example, then I know myself that if I'm looking to buy an electricals product, let's just say it's a laptop, it's a pretty considered purchase. So you might go into the journey knowing the your your brand preferences. You might have a price point in mind. You might have the screen size in mind. You might have processor speed, memory, the weight of the laptop. And this is where the specifications really matter. And so a consumer goes into that customer journey. They will use and and rely on those specifications to try to refine and hone their choices with the advice of AI, at that beginning part of the customer journey. So this is where we see those specifications really matter. And for a brand and retailer, making sure that they are found and discovered at that point in the customer journey, of course, is really important. What we're also seeing is that a lot of those decision criterias, whether it's a decision criteria, whether it's information around the brand, the price points, technical specifications, delivery options, return options, whatever it might be, a lot of those decision a lot of that decision criteria is being pulled forward to the beginning of the customer journey. So consumers are going into the customer journey using all of that decision criteria. And so for a retail brand to be surfaced as an option at that point, it's becoming more front loaded to the beginning of the customer journey. On this graph as well, we've got other areas like jewelry and watches where we see that the impact might be felt to a lesser extent. It's a more tactile experience. It might be higher value. Consumers might want to have that physical experience to try something on or see what it looks like. And so it's going to look uneven across different areas. The shopper mission also that I would pull out is one around gifting. And so using these platforms for inspiration around gifting, so it might be what to buy my wife for Valentine's Day or what to buy my daughter for her birthday, but using, use a gift gifting as a shopper mission is one of those areas that we see being, heavily disrupted as well. In terms of, how quickly all of this is gonna happen, I think the big factor is going to be around trust and consumer trust in these platforms. And so what our research shows is that trust looks different depending on what kind of AI interaction consumers gonna have. And you can see here, there's web browsing, there's retail chatbots, there's AI platforms like GPT, Claude Gemini, and we split this down by age and income. What we see is that there's a particular sweet spot in terms of consumers using AI in this kind of context. And, actually, that sweet spot is around middle aged consumers that are the most affluent. And you can see that by the kind of the the the deepest green, within those, within those boxes. But you can see here for every single point, whether it's it's AI web browsing or AI chatbots or AI platforms, it's that middle aged affluent consumer that is already using this type of technology in that discovery part of the journey. The sour spot, if you like, is the older consumers that are the least affluent that are least trusting of different AI platforms. I also think it's quite interesting as well that you've got social media as a kind of a a comparison around trust, but there just generally seems to be quite a lot of trust for some of these AI platforms, but it does look different between different, different types of consumers and how they are using it. The impact on on retailers and retail brands is going to be significant. And so what we see is that there are gonna be five areas of key disruption here. The first area is where we would say that AI is going to have an impact of disintermediating between brand and consumer. So as consumers use AI more and as we move into true agent ecommerce where AI agents will be purchasing things on consumers' behalf without their intervention, that is going to be a layer in between the customer and the brand. The second thing is around that brand visibility and what businesses and retailers really need to do in order to have AI visibility in this new in this kind of new wave of discovery? The second the third point is around knowing the good bots and the bad bots. So what retailers need to do in terms of letting good bots in so that can surface the information for consumers when they are when they are doing genuine searches and also keeping the bad bots out, which might be platforms that are trying to scrape data to try to train models and things like that. The fourth area is around getting the basics right around SEO and then using that to build an AI an AEO strategy. And then the fifth point is around just having a governance plan around data. We think that there's going to be four main stages of, how we kind of, shift towards Agence ecommerce. The first stage we are already in. So this is around AI assisted commerce and consumers using these platforms to discover products. The second stage is where we are today, I would argue, semi autonomous agents. So consumers going onto platforms, and you can do this today, go on to chat GPT, put it into AI agent mode or work mode, and using an AI agent to go and find the best price for a particular product or build an itinerary around the holiday that you're taking to Greece at the, you know, for your next summer holiday. But using an AI agent to do a lot of the hard lifting in terms of research and discovery at the beginning part of customer journey. The next stage is around fully agentic, fully agentic, retail. And so this is where AI agents will act on on behalf of consumers without their intervention, but set against the preferences for consumers. So it might know the price point. It might know your preferred brands. It might know, what kind of delivery options you like depending on the shopper mission. But essentially having an I a AI agent go off and do a lot of that on your behalf. And then the fourth stage, I think, is around agent to agent commerce. And so this is where a consumer's AI agents will go off and search for for for particular, on a particular shopper mission and talk to an AI agent from a retailer and brand. And I think this is where you'll get some interesting dynamics of a consumer's AI agent bartering on your behalf against a retailer's AI agent to try to find the best price or something like that. So so like I say, it's quick, pretty quick, pretty rapid, but really be delighted to go back into, the Fireside chat so we can test some of those, test some of that, some of those data points with Alex as well. Yeah. That was great. Thank you, Richard. I think some really interesting points in there. So, yeah, I see some questions are coming in. Please keep those coming in the chat. Yeah. Brilliant. I think what we do is, we'll pick some of those questions up as we, as we go through the chat. But, initially, Alex, I'd love to get your, kind of reflections on some of the data points that I mentioned within, yeah, within the, within the presentation and whether or not that reflects against some of the data that you're seeing as well. Yeah. Definitely. I think, you know, it's really interesting around the different, demographics that are search functionality. We actually run every year a shopper experience index, and we found that two thirds of shoppers say they are comfortable with using AI involvement. But even though they're, you you know, really comfortable with that, they do still need proof. So this is obviously where content comes into that. 22% of Gen z said they need to see five or more sources before they feel safe buying. So when we're thinking about making sure that you're kind of thinking holistically, having an optimized PDP with rich content is critical because it's answering those questions at the top of the funnel. And then when your shoppers are looking for more proof, they are giving them that backup about what other people are saying about this product. So, you know, I think the sort of agentic shopping is maybe a little bit kind of further away. People need to get comfortable with that. But as they are getting more comfortable with AI and taking us down the funnel more quickly, having that content is super critical for conversion too. Yeah. Absolutely. I think, you know, content has been one of those things that, I've discussed with many many of our clients, and no doubt you have, as well. But in practical terms, what changes about how a retailer is getting found? How do they adapt to that? Yeah. So, you know, it's kind of this discovery is really happening within that AI answer now. So it's kind of less about those traditional rankings on the page when it comes to Google and that traditional keyword search that I mentioned up top. And you spoke there, Richard, about answer engine optimization. You need to be able to have enough content so that, LLMs like Google, Gemini, ChatGPT trusts your site to site. So, you know, really, if you're not the answer and the authority on that, you're not gonna be considered. And, you know, when we're thinking about it now, there are even more and more channels for retailers to show up. We're thinking about AI discovery. We've also got to add into the mix social and traditional, but it really all rolls into one. And it's really just thinking about making sure that as a retailer, you're showing up in all of those channels and having the content that's gonna answer those questions where people are using that more conversational language. I think, you know, people aren't just looking for holiday dress anymore. They're looking for a dress that is not gonna crinkle on in their suitcase on the way to a wedding in Italy. And that's the kind of answers that you're gonna get from things like your reviews and, your questions and answers and that content across your site. So. It's. really interesting, isn't it, to see how quickly, search behavior is changing? We've seen data from Google, for example, to see how the kind of the length of, the search has increased. It's become more multilayered, more multidimensional as well, and it's just. consumers have have have been searching in a very similar way for there's been, of course, disruption from mobile and, more kind of location based searching. But by and large, kind of keyword searches remain pretty static for at least the last decade, fifteen, twenty years, and actually consumers have have have changed the way they search quite quickly. In in thinking in those terms around the rate of adoption and how retailers think about how they need to scale and where they are now and where they might need to be in a couple of years, I I kind of saw a very interesting stat from John Lewis the other day, which showed that the proportion of traffic that they see driven from LLMs has gone from naught point 3% to two and a half percent over the last twelve months, and they estimate that it is going to account for about 5% of their traffic by the end of twenty twenty seven oh, sorry. End of q one in 2027. So just thinking about your reflection of the conversations that you're having, do you think the adoption is happening at that kind of scale yet for many of the brands that you're talking to? And why does a retailer really need to care now rather than kind of the next two years? Yeah. Definitely, retailers I'm talking to, they are seeing more traffic from LLMs. I think, you know, that adoption is really steep. It's I think, you know, if we kind of look you spoke about sort of history of ecommerce, you know, it kind of when we look at adoption of the Internet, that kind of is a bit slower and and then the pandemic kinda kicked it off. But when we're looking at AI search and discovery and then shopping through that, it's really, you know, zoomed up in comparison. And especially when we're kinda looking at those 30 where this kind of technology. is really native to them, and this is gonna become even more so with, you know, other generations as they're coming up and having more share of that wallet. And as you mentioned, you know, kind of different categories lend itself well to, you know, more. So kind of making sure that retailers are preparing for the long tail. So I think even though maybe it's smaller percentages now, this is only going to increase. So when I talk to my retailers, it's very much about how are you preparing for this? How are you making sure that your site is structured correctly so that LLMs can read that content? How are you making sure that those answers are within that content? But also thinking across their sites in terms of things like blogs, top tens, you know, best of all feed into that. So. it really is not just kind of one team's, you know, strategy. It really is stretching across the business now. Yeah. So so you mentioned things like blogs. Is there kind of other types of content that AI is actually leaning on? And I'm gonna I'm gonna kind of, like, integrate that with a a question that we've had on the, the q and a as well, which is, does price play a role in that? And then also, does it apply equally to big and small retailers? So when I'm kinda thinking about price, it's definitely, you know, when people are using AI to shop, they're they're generally using words like best, and it's gonna be, you know, the best option, the best price. As you said, people are using LLMs to find the best cost options for them. And then in terms of sort of big and small retailers, it absolutely applies the same to both. If you want to show up against your competitors, you have to make sure that you have a really strong strategy around your, AI discoverability. I think when I use something like Gemini or ChatGPT and I'm looking for a new product, it's giving me three recommendations. So you need to think about are you coming up in that top three. And you want to make sure as well that you're not only, that you're you know, you're not being directed to things like editorials on fashion sites and things like that. Your customers need to be brought to you, and that's why it's super important to have that on-site strategy to make sure that your customers are not being taken away from your retailer site and sent somewhere else. Yeah. Absolutely. And just out of interest, when you think about, the conversations over the last couple of years, when did you think this kind of, like, shift actually happened and there was this turned into kind of, like, a really interesting idea to when retailers and brands thought, well, actually, this is something that I really need to get right and started to potentially worry about. Yeah. I think, personally, it's really ramped up over the last sort of six to twelve months. You know, even myself, when I kinda look back two years ago, was I using Gemini or ChatchiPT to find new products? Probably not. Whereas in the last six to twelve months, it's definitely ramped up, and I think that's being seen by retailers I speak to. So there's definitely a lot more urgency around this in terms of their strategy, but also, like I said earlier, making sure that they have the right technical setup, whether that is doing that themselves or partnering with someone like Bazaarvoice to make sure that content is crawlable. So I've definitely seen a real kind of rapid increase in the focus on that and creating the right teams to really lean into that on the retailer side. Yeah. And, actually, you kind of like, you mentioned teams and, it makes me think about, I guess, the accountability and the responsibility, given that this is kind of like a a new wave disruption. Yeah. Who do you tend to see owns this internally from a retailer, or is it, in some cases, it kind of, like, falling in between different teams? So it can. I think I'm seeing more and more with it falling into the SEO team because it is coming under search and discoverability. So I'm seeing a lot of, SEO leads kind of now becoming GEO experts as well and having that. as part of their. payment and their strategy. So I'm definitely seeing that. But then, of course, content has to feed into that. So you can do all all you want to make sure that you're visible, to the LLMs and callable, but having that content is really important, and that is definitely not cleanly owned. It really can be owned by different, you know, areas in the business from a retail perspective, whether that's, you know, their on-site optimization, CRO, their brand team, their content team. So I think where I see the the most kind of benefits is when a customer will have kind of a central point of excellence. They'll have a UGC team that will manage that kind of from from one aspect. So, yeah, I think it's not kind of a clean-cut answer at the moment and, again, something that a lot retailers are working out, but I think it definitely is becoming more a part of that SEO team's, Yeah. strategy AI as well. Yeah. Yeah. Do do you see as well there's, quite a uneven landscape between different businesses. So some businesses still yeah. Do you find that some businesses still think that this is kind of years away, or yeah. And some people are obviously, you know, taking it. seriously, integrating the right policies, etcetera. What's that landscape. look like? Definitely. I mean, you know, you spoke about things like on-site, you know, AI assistant, so Rufus or something like Trevor on our Goshen. And, Trevor, if you go on there, you can see that they are using reviews in there. They're using customer, ratings in there. So, again, it's thinking about when it comes from a brand selling on a retailer, you know, not just kinda showing up in LMS, but how are you showing up on retailer sites as well? And that is definitely not, standard across the board. Some retailers like an Argos are really, you know, ahead with that, and. they've been you know, they've had Trevor for quite some time. And then some, you know, smaller brands and retailers maybe aren't quite there yet. So I I definitely don't think it's kind of standard across the board, but what can be standard across the board is that content collection program and making sure that you have that to be able to be cited to LLMs when customers are asking these questions. Yeah. And I'm sure there'd be, businesses listening, to us now who are on a very different stage of the the journey. Yep. And there'll be some that are, no doubt, very advanced, and there'll be some that are on the the beginning stages of their journey. So if you were talking to the ones that are more kind of at the beginning stage of the journey, What kind of practical advice might you, might you give them? Like, where where do they start on this journey for for a lot of brands? Yeah. So I think number one is running a simple check themselves, going on to an AI tool, asking some questions that a shopper might ask, like the dress question or if you're looking for. a new laptop or you're looking for a new moisturizer, it all kind of works the same. I'm really seeing where they rank in that and seeing where AI sites. I we do quite often run sort of analysis on GEO visibility for clients. And quite often, I'll see that brands or retailers are being cited in things like Trustpilot Yeah. or Vogue, and it's kind of not where they want it to be sent to. So I think the number one thing and the takeaway to people on this call is definitely see where you are being ranked on LLMs and see where your customers are being directed to, as a start, and then you can build your strategy based on that. Is there kind of, like, one thing that separates those retailers that are getting it right at the moment and those that are still behind the curve, or is there is it stuck a combination of lots of different things? I think it's definitely a combination. I think, you know, my I've got many retailers that I'm talking to that are already ahead of the game in making sure that their sites are visible and set up correctly in terms of being able to serve that content to the LLMs. And we you can definitely see the difference there as to how they're showing up, in those searches. I think a lot of my retailers are also doing work around plugging the gaps when it comes to content as well when running things like sampling campaigns, making sure that they have a really strong collection program so that even if, you know, they're not quite there yet with the technical side, they're at least getting that content in to make sure that they're showing up in LLMs when those queries are being run. So, yeah, a bit of a mixed bag for sure. Okay. Brilliant. I'm just gonna look at kind of throw a couple of questions out from our q and a as well. I think there's a really interesting one here around just that shift towards SEO and an AEO mindset. So I'll read read the question directly, but it essentially says, how do you shift an SEO mindset to an AEO mindset? This is a change that we are seeing. So how do you prepare a team for this? That's a really good question. I think kind of shifting that mindset is really thinking about how quickly that landscape is changing and how retailers will be left behind if they are not having an AEO mindset. It's not going anywhere. If we think about it in the future, like you say, with agentic shopping, will, you know, Google traditional search isn't going to be as relevant? So you have to have an AEO mindset to make sure that when your customers are shopping in that way, you are ready. And if retailers aren't thinking that way, then they are not gonna be cited in those recommendations and they lose out. I think, you know, kind of aside from that, and it is a bit of a a sidestep, but also kind of loyalty is gonna be really key for retailers to bring customers back. So a lot of my retailers with very strong loyalty programs, and that's also what people are looking for in search. You know, where can I find the, you know, points in the points that I can collect for money off and things like that? So it's definitely a really good kind of retention tactic, but it becomes kind of all part of that AEO strategy. Right? Everything we're doing now. is feeding into that. And I think I think part of the thing that I said in my presentation is around getting the basics right around SEO and then building on that for AEO. Definitely. And I know that a lot of the, yeah, a lot of the kind of the principles haven't changed. I think this is about, having the right data in the right format, in the right. way, making it accessible for whether it's a kind of a bot that's going to influence your SEO or AI, you know, AI bots that are gonna influence your AEO. I think it probably creates a bit more, complexity Yeah. around all that kind of semantic search and, being able to dynamically change search as well. But, but, essentially, it's about having some really strong foundations for SEO, I think. Yeah. Definitely. It's an exciting time, but, you know, lots of retailers to be thinking about for sure. Yeah. Absolutely. We got another question which is around, personalization. So it's around how does a, how does AI personalize the recommendation it gives users when presenting different options? Yeah. That's a really interesting question. You know, if we think about it in the way of personas as well, you know, different brands and retailers will have different personas that they're targeting. So making sure that you're already set up with what's across your site to target that. But, yeah, I think that's kind of one of the key sort of, you know, strategies around that one. I'd like to know if you have thoughts around that one too. Yeah. Yeah. No. I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll build on it. And I I don't know if it's kind of a direct answer question or just an observation, but I think what's what's, what I find curious is that as consumers and just people in general use these platforms more and more, the the platforms are building up memory, memory about a customer, memory about your previous search habits, memory about previous conversations. And then as consumers might open up more data to these platforms, it might have memory about lots of other things as well. And so I find it curious to think about the nondeterministic nature of prompts and the answers that are provided. And as these platforms have greater depth of memory for different consumers and the way that they are using the platforms and your AI agent knows much, much more about you. It is kind of like a it's an interesting dynamic where brands need to think or or how do brands then think about the nondeterministic nature of some of the outputs when there is so much memory inbuilt into, the way that they're using the platforms. So, I don't think there's an answer for that. I've asked the question a few times, Yeah. but I just think it's an interesting, yeah, Yeah. an interesting think it ties briefer. in really well to the agentic. side of things. You know, they're gonna learn more and more about us to be able to shop on our behalf, you know, our likes, our dislikes, which retailers we prefer, where we normally shop from, the kind of products we normally buy. So, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. It's just taking more and more about us to make those recommendations. Yeah. Brilliant. Alex, I know that we're kind of. approaching time now, and we. did want to ask another couple of, poll questions, didn't we? So I'll hand back over to you. Yeah. Definitely. So we've got a couple of polls, that we're gonna kind of end with before we if we might have time for a couple more questions in the in the q and a. So do please keep those coming. But we're just gonna pop, poll two up on the screen. And this is going to be where is AI having the biggest impact on your business. And that is gonna be discovery, traffic, conversion, or not sure yet. So we'd love to kind of hear your thoughts on that based on what you know or what we've spoken about today. And please, yeah, answer in in the the poll chat. We're not coming in around discovery, so I think the the message is hitting home. And it definitely has impact on traffic as well as Richard and I were saying, you know, that kind of increase on traffic that AI is having to cite as well is really growing and will continue to do so. Yeah. Great. Yeah. I think people have, definitely looking at discovery as as the top one, which is, you know, absolutely right, that top of funnel. Discoverability is is really key for AI. And then we have one more poll as well. So, get your fingers ready at the buttons. So poll three, and this kind of ties into what we were talking about around team ownership. So we'd love to know what you think about how ready your team is for AI driven discovery. So that's gonna be you think you're ahead of it, you're just starting, or it's not on your radar yet. So I actually love to see the answers here as well if it kind of is in line with what we're thinking. Lots have just started. Few not on our radar yet. Okay. Definitely. I think this kind of is in line with conversations I've been having in terms of sort of that just getting started. And I think, hopefully, this conversation has sort of shown that urgency to start start to get a bit more ahead of it, but it's given you some tips on what you can be doing to to get there. That's fascinating. Let, me. I'll there's I'll just go back to the q and a for a second if we can. We've just. got, you know, a couple more minutes minutes left. we wrap up. But, Yeah. I think it's really interesting one, especially in context of, of course, what you guys do as well. But have you got thoughts on UGC Mhmm. from an AI visibility perspective or process? Yeah. So in terms of UGC, the more UGC you have, the better. And I think, traditionally, people see UGC as images, but we're thinking about lots of rich, deep content and fresh content as well. We like to say LLMs love fresh content. They tend to kind of disregard things over sort of ninety days, but it's increasingly getting shorter. We're looking about thirty days. Think about having questions and answers on your page as well, so not just those frequently asked questions that you're creating as a retailer or a brand, but questions that customers are answering. So, you know, we have that bizarre voice. Customers can ask a question and other customers or the brand or retailer can answer. It all feeds into there. LLMs are increasingly going to be taking into account images as well. So thinking about the user generated images you're having on-site is all really going to help drive that discoverability at, within those LLMs. So it really needs to be a full holistic approach when when retailers are thinking about the user generated content program. Is is there a particular type of user generated content that I mean, it might work well now and it might change in the future, but is it around kind of blogs or reviews or FAQs? Or All of those, definitely reviews. You know, like I say, if if, you know, you're looking for specific products, that information is generally gonna be in what your customers are saying about your product. I'm looking for the best television under 500 pounds, and I want it to, you know, mount on the wall really well, that's the kind of information that you can gather in reviews and the same in questions and answers. And then having the things like those frequently asked questions and those blogs help sort of back up that authority to LLMs that you are the retailer or the brand that needs to be cited as being the best for that person and what they're searching for. So it's a bit of a mixed bag. But I would say, yeah, that kind of anything to keep your answer engine optimized ready. Alright. Brilliant. Alex, you got probably like, I've got time for squeezing one more question. I think it's. quite a nice question to end with just like one minute left, but there's a I think there's a really good question here, which is what does a successful performance marketer look like in in an AI first world? Oh, that is a big question. So I one that I'm not sure I can can answer. I don't know if you have any thoughts, Richard, but I think, Yeah. Well, definitely. I mean, I I I think it's the it's the fact that the world is changing very quickly and, from my my perception, I think we're just seeing this enormous fragmentation across discovery and research. And, eventually, it's gonna move on to purchase as well. But that fragmentation is across so many different platforms, and fighting for consumers' attentions now is harder than it's ever been before. And so that fragmentation across agentic platforms, across social commerce, across discovery on websites as well, the gamification and what you've seen with, for example, Timo and what they've done with their kind of proposition. It's just looks like a much more complicated world, and one where I think AI is gonna just be ingrained into the DNA of everything that we do. Yeah. Definitely. Well, yeah, we're definitely at time now. So thank you, Richard, and thank you for everyone that joined. Really appreciate your time, and feel free to reach out with us for any questions. And this is recorded, so it will be shared. So, yeah, have a good rest of your day. Thanks, Richard. Brilliant. Thank you. very much. Cheers. Bye. Bye.