18 useful AI tools for ecommerce in 2026

There are nine areas of an ecommerce operation where AI tools are pulling real weight right now: cart recovery, product photography, site search, virtual try-on, ad creation, customer support, dynamic pricing, inventory forecasting, and review analysis. This list covers two tools in each category, what they actually do, and which type of store they fit best.

Now, let's break each one down.

AI for customer engagement and cart recovery

AI cart recovery tools work differently from traditional email flows in one key way: they decide what to send, when, and on which channel based on each visitor's behavior, rather than running the same sequence for everyone. The two tools below represent opposite ends of the spectrum. Klaviyo gives your team full manual control over flows and segments. Markopolo removes the manual work entirely and lets AI agents handle recovery autonomously across email, SMS, WhatsApp, push, and voice.

Markopolo AI

Most customer engagement platforms handle cart recovery in the same way. Markopolo AI doesn't. It deploys an individual AI agent for each visitor, one that tracks their behavior, figures out their intent, and builds a unique recovery journey in real time.

Here's what that actually looks like. When someone abandons a cart, Markopolo's system (powered by its proprietary MarkTag intelligence layer) doesn't just log "cart abandoned." It reads the full behavioral context:

• Was this person comparison shopping?

• Are they price-sensitive or looking for social proof?

• Do they respond better to WhatsApp or email?

• What time of day do they actually engage?

MarkTag converts all of this into a 384-dimensional behavioral vector, essentially a mathematical fingerprint of that shopper's intent. The AI then generates a completely unique outreach strategy in under 50 milliseconds, choosing the right channel, the right message, and the right timing for that specific person.

A price-sensitive researcher might get an SMS with a price-match guarantee 42 minutes after abandoning. An impulse buyer might get an immediate text about limited stock, no discount needed. A technical buyer might get an email with a detailed spec comparison, followed by a voice call from an AI agent with a specialist persona.

Markopolo operates across channels (email, SMS, WhatsApp, push notifications, and AI voice calls) and switches between them based on what's working for each individual. Its merchants report 30-40% cart recovery rates, compared to the 10-15% industry average. Setup on Shopify takes minutes, not days.

The platform also includes an Audience Studio for building dynamic cohorts from behavioral data, a Campaign Agent that designs and launches multi-channel campaigns autonomously, and full analytics that track revenue contribution across every touchpoint.

It has a free plan as well as tiered subscriptions. Ecommerce brands of different sizes built on Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and native ecosystems   

Best for: Ecommerce brands that want to move past static email and SMS flows and recover significantly more abandoned revenue without building workflows manually.

Klaviyo

Klaviyo remains the popular choice for email and SMS marketing. Its strength is in its tight Shopify integration and its mature flow builder. You can build abandoned cart sequences, post-purchase flows, and win-back campaigns with granular segmentation based on purchase history and on-site behavior.

Where Klaviyo fits is for teams that want hands-on control over their messaging. You build the flows, you write the copy, you define the segments. It's powerful, but it's manual. The ceiling on recovery rates reflects that: you're still applying the same logic to groups of people, not individuals.

Best for: Online stores with a dedicated marketing team that wants direct control over email and SMS workflows.

AI for product photos and video

Hiring photographers, renting studios, and coordinating product shoots is slow and expensive. AI now handles much of this work. You upload a product photo and get back studio-quality images with swapped backgrounds, lifestyle settings, or even AI-generated video, in minutes.

Nano Banana

Nano Banana is the widely used name for Google's Gemini image generation model (originally Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, now upgraded to the more capable Nano Banana Pro based on Gemini 3). It lets you upload a product photo and use plain-language prompts to transform it: swap backgrounds, place products in lifestyle scenes, generate multiple angles, and create marketing visuals, all without a studio.

For ecommerce, this is a production shortcut. You take one decent photo of your product and generate an entire visual library: clean white backgrounds for Amazon, lifestyle shots for Instagram, seasonal variations for holiday campaigns. The model handles lighting, shadows, reflections, and texture with increasing photorealism. Nano Banana Pro adds up to 4K resolution output and the ability to maintain brand consistency across dozens of images.

It's accessible through the Gemini app, Google AI Studio, and various third-party platforms. The basic version is free with usage limits; the Pro version requires a Gemini subscription.

One caveat: Nano Banana excels at creative and lifestyle visuals but can struggle with exact product accuracy (logos, labels, fine text). It's great for social content and secondary images, but you may still want real photos for your hero product shots.

Best for: Brands that need to scale visual content quickly without expensive photo shoots, especially for social media, A+ content, and marketplace listings.

Synthesia

Synthesia turns text scripts into professional-quality videos with AI avatars. You type what you want the presenter to say, pick an avatar (or create one that looks like you), and it generates a polished video in minutes. It supports over 160 languages with lip-synced translations.

For ecommerce, this solves a specific problem: product explainers, how-to videos, and marketing clips that would normally require a camera crew. A DTC brand can create a product walkthrough video, translate it into 30 languages, and publish it to every market, all from a browser.

Synthesia recently raised $200 million at a $4 billion valuation, and its upcoming Video Agents feature (expected in 2026) will let viewers interact with the AI avatar in real time, opening up possibilities for interactive product demos and customer support.

Pricing starts at $29/month for basic plans, with enterprise tiers for teams that need custom avatars, brand kits, and higher resolution exports.

Best for: Stores that need product videos, tutorials, or multilingual marketing content without the time and cost of traditional video production.

AI for better site search

When a shopper types "cozy blue throw blanket under $50" into your search bar, most default search tools choke. AI-powered site search understands natural language, fixes typos, and learns from behavior to rank products by what's most likely to convert, not just keyword matches.

Algolia

Algolia is a search API built for speed. Its results return in milliseconds, which matters for stores with large catalogs where a slow search bar directly costs you sales. It uses AI to understand shopper intent, handle synonyms and misspellings, and personalize results based on user behavior.

The tradeoff: Algolia is developer-first. It gives engineers granular control over ranking algorithms and integrates cleanly into headless commerce architectures. But merchandising teams can't easily adjust search results without filing a dev ticket. If you have engineering resources, Algolia is hard to beat on raw performance. If you don't, the learning curve is steep.

It integrates with Shopify, Magento, and most major platforms. Pricing is based on search requests and records.

Best for: Stores with large catalogs and a development team that wants full control over a fast, customizable search experience.

Klevu (now part of Athos Commerce)

Klevu was built specifically for ecommerce teams, not engineers. It offers AI-powered semantic search, visual search (shoppers upload an image to find similar products), and merchandising tools that let non-technical users pin products, create banners, and adjust rankings without writing code.

In late 2025, Klevu merged with Searchspring and Intelligent Reach to form Athos Commerce, creating a broader product discovery platform. The combined offering now includes search, merchandising, personalization, and data feed management.

Klevu's AI is trained on transactional data, so it understands that "running shoes" means something different to a shopper than to a general search engine. It handles long, conversational queries well, the kind of searches AI assistants are training consumers to make.

Best for: Mid-market ecommerce brands on Shopify, BigCommerce, or Magento that need powerful search without heavy developer involvement.

AI for virtual fitting and AR

Returns are expensive. In apparel, return rates can exceed 30%, often because the product didn't fit or look the way the shopper expected. AR try-on tools let customers see how clothes look on them or how furniture fits in their room before they buy.

Snap AR

Snapchat's AR platform lets brands create try-on experiences that reach Snap's massive user base. Shoppers can virtually try on sunglasses, shoes, makeup, and clothing through the Snapchat camera. Brands like Prada, Nike, and Dior have used Snap AR lenses for product launches.

The platform includes AR commerce features that let users tap to buy directly from the try-on experience. For fashion and beauty brands targeting younger demographics, Snap AR is one of the most accessible ways to offer virtual try-on without building a custom app.

Best for: Fashion, beauty, and accessory brands that want to reach Snapchat's audience with try-before-you-buy AR experiences.

Zeekit

Zeekit uses AI to let shoppers see how clothing looks on a body that matches their own measurements. Originally an independent startup, it was acquired and integrated into major retail platforms. Its technology maps garments onto a realistic body model, accounting for size, fit, and drape.

The result is a virtual fitting room that goes beyond flat lay images. Shoppers can see how a dress falls on their frame or how a jacket fits across the shoulders, reducing the guesswork that drives returns.

Best for: Apparel retailers that want to reduce return rates by letting customers visualize fit before purchasing.

AI for ads and marketing content

Writing ad copy, generating creative variations, and managing spend across platforms used to require a full marketing team. AI tools now handle much of this, from writing headlines to designing ad images to deciding where your budget goes.

Jasper

Jasper is an AI writing tool built for marketing teams. It generates blog posts, ad copy, email subject lines, social captions, and landing page text using your brand voice guidelines. You train it on your tone, terminology, and style, and it produces on-brand content that a human can review and publish.

Where Jasper stands out is in long-form content and brand consistency. It's not just a prompt-and-pray tool. Teams can set up brand knowledge bases, define voice profiles, and create templates that keep output consistent across channels.

Best for: Marketing teams that need to produce high volumes of on-brand written content across channels.

AdCreative.ai

AdCreative.ai focuses on the visual side. It generates ad banners, social media creatives, and video ads optimized for conversion. You input your product images, brand colors, and copy, and it produces dozens of ad variations scored by predicted performance.

The tool integrates with Meta, Google Ads, and other platforms, so you can launch creatives directly from the dashboard. It also runs A/B tests and shifts budget toward the highest-performing variants.

Best for: Ecommerce brands that need a high volume of ad creative variations without a full design team.

AI for support and help

Customer support is repetitive by nature. A large percentage of tickets are questions about order status, return policies, and product availability, the kind of queries an AI can handle instantly, freeing up human agents for complex problems.

Gorgias

Gorgias is a helpdesk built specifically for ecommerce. It pulls in data from Shopify, BigCommerce, and Magento so agents (and AI) can see a customer's full order history, tracking info, and past conversations in one view.

Its AI features auto-respond to common questions, suggest replies, and classify tickets by intent. Gorgias reports that its AI can resolve a significant portion of tickets without human intervention, which directly reduces support costs per ticket.

Best for: Shopify and ecommerce brands that want a support platform deeply integrated with their store data.

Tidio

Tidio combines live chat, chatbots, and AI-powered customer service for small-to-mid-size stores. Its Lyro AI agent can answer customer questions using your knowledge base, handle FAQs, and route complex issues to human agents.

It's lighter-weight and more affordable than enterprise helpdesks, which makes it a good fit for smaller stores that need to automate support without a big upfront investment.

Best for: Small-to-mid-size online stores looking for an affordable AI chatbot that integrates with their existing stack.

AI for dynamic pricing and margins

Pricing in ecommerce moves fast. Your competitors change prices constantly, and if you're still updating spreadsheets manually, you're leaving money on the table. AI pricing tools monitor competitor prices in real time and adjust yours automatically based on rules you set.

Prisync

Prisync tracks competitor prices across any website, marketplace, or sales channel and lets you set dynamic pricing rules that adjust your prices automatically. If a competitor drops their price on a product you both sell, Prisync can match it, undercut it, or hold steady, based on your strategy.

It's particularly accessible for small and mid-size ecommerce stores. Setup is quick (imports your product catalog in one click on Shopify), the interface is straightforward, and pricing starts lower than most enterprise competitors. It also tracks competitor stock levels, which helps you spot when a rival is out of stock on a product you carry.

Best for: Small and mid-size ecommerce stores that want competitor price tracking and automated repricing without enterprise complexity.

Omnia Retail

Omnia Retail is built for larger retailers that need real-time pricing adjustments across multiple channels. It combines competitor monitoring, demand-based pricing, and promotional strategy management in one platform.

Where Omnia differs from simpler tools is in its strategic depth. You can set pricing strategies that factor in not just competitor prices but also demand elasticity, margin targets, and promotional calendars. It integrates with major ecommerce platforms and ERP systems.

Best for: Mid-to-large omnichannel retailers that need sophisticated pricing strategies across many SKUs and channels.

AI for inventory and logistics

Ordering too much stock ties up cash. Ordering too little means lost sales. AI forecasting tools analyze sales patterns, seasonality, and trends to tell you exactly what to order and when, and optimize how you get it to customers.

Locus

Locus uses AI to optimize last-mile delivery routes, warehouse allocation, and shipment scheduling. It analyzes real-time data like traffic patterns, delivery windows, and vehicle capacity to reduce delivery costs and speed up fulfillment.

For ecommerce brands that manage their own logistics or work with multiple carriers, Locus can meaningfully reduce cost per delivery while improving on-time rates.

Best for: Ecommerce brands and logistics operators that need to optimize delivery routes and reduce last-mile costs.

Inventory Planner

Inventory Planner forecasts demand for every SKU based on historical sales, seasonality, trends, and vendor lead times. It generates purchase order recommendations that tell you exactly what to buy, when, and from which supplier.

It integrates natively with Shopify, Amazon, and other platforms, and it's built for ecommerce specifically, not retrofitted from manufacturing or wholesale use cases.

Best for: Growing ecommerce brands that want to stop guessing on inventory orders and reduce both stockouts and overstock.

AI for customer reviews and feedback

Reviews drive purchasing decisions. But most brands only skim their reviews; they don't systematically analyze what customers are saying at scale. AI review tools read every review, spot patterns, generate summaries for shoppers, and alert you to product issues before they tank your ratings.

Yotpo AI

Yotpo collects reviews, photos, and Q&A from customers and uses AI to generate review summaries that highlight common pros and cons. Shoppers see a quick snapshot of what other buyers liked and didn't like, without reading dozens of individual reviews.

For the brand, Yotpo's AI identifies sentiment trends across products. If multiple reviews mention that a zipper breaks after a month, you see that flagged before it becomes a one-star avalanche. It also integrates with loyalty programs and SMS marketing.

Best for: Ecommerce brands that want review collection, AI-generated summaries, and sentiment analysis in one platform.

Okendo

Okendo focuses on collecting zero-party data, meaning information customers voluntarily share through reviews, surveys, and quizzes. Its AI analyzes this data to surface insights about product quality, customer preferences, and buying motivations.

Where Okendo stands out is in the depth of data it collects. Beyond star ratings, it gathers attribute-based reviews (fit, quality, value), customer photos, and survey responses that feed into personalization and product development.

Best for: Brands that want to use reviews and surveys to collect actionable customer data, not just social proof.

How to choose the right AI tool for your ecommerce store

There's no single AI tool that does everything well. The best approach is to start with your biggest revenue leak and work outward.

If your cart abandonment rate is high and your current recovery flows haven't budged in months, start there. AI agents for ecommerce can act autonomously that have a measurable impact on revenue within weeks, not months.

If you're spending thousands on product photography every quarter, test an AI image tool on your next batch of SKUs. If support tickets are burying your team, deploy an AI helpdesk and measure how many tickets it resolves without a human.

A few principles that hold across every category:

• Start with the problem, not the technology. Don't adopt AI tools because they sound impressive. Adopt them because they fix something that's costing you money right now.

• Measure before and after. Every tool on this list should produce a measurable change in a metric you care about: recovery rate, support cost per ticket, return rate, time to publish content. If you can't measure the impact, you can't justify the spend.

• Prioritize integration. The best AI tool is useless if it doesn't connect to your store, your data, and your existing workflows. Check platform compatibility before you evaluate features.

• Don't automate everything at once. Start with one tool, one use case, one measurable goal. Prove the ROI, then expand. The stores getting the most value from AI aren't the ones using the most tools; they're the ones using the right tools deeply.