Sam Altman SCREWS UP ChatGPT Shopping | Plus: Google Product Feed Deep Dive

Why did OpenAI quietly kill its shopping feature, and what does it mean for the future of Google Ads? 🚨

In this episode of Growing E-commerce, Mike Ryan and Chris Sharma tackle the reality of the "AI takeover" in paid search. Following Chris's exclusive executive Think Tank with 20 leading CMOs in London, we are cutting through the noise to discuss the 2026 playbook.

First up: The ChatGPT Shopping disaster. We discuss why OpenAI had to walk away from its "thin Google Shopping wrapper" to save its burn rate, and why Google's ad ecosystem dominance is stronger than ever. We also dive into the "Wild West" of agentic commerce, including Amazon's massive legal battle with Perplexity over spoofed traffic and lost ad revenue.

But it's not all drama! The second half of this episode is a pure, actionable deep dive into the future of Google Product Feeds. With AI search queries getting 2.5x longer, we break down exactly how to future-proof your 

About Smarter Ecommerce (smec):

Smarter Ecommerce (smec) empowers e-commerce brands with AI-driven PPC automation that optimizes for profit and business outcomes while maintaining strategic control.

The platform activates first-party data - profit margins, customer lifetime value, and key business metrics - to automate campaign optimization toward goals like profitability and efficient growth, while detailed campaign insights provide full transparency and enable PPC teams to focus on strategic oversight rather than manual execution.

As a Google Premier Partner and three-time Microsoft Retail Partner of the Year, smec manages over €500 million in ad spend and drives €5B+ in annual e-commerce revenue for 350+ global retail clients including THG, Snipes, REWE, and Intersport.

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Transcript

Intro: The "Plain Mike and Plain Chris" Dynamic

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to Growing E-Commerce. I'm one of your hosts, Mike Ryan, and with me, as always, is Chris.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

It's just not sexy at all.

unknown 0:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

So it's Chris. Just Chris. Just Chris. Plain Chris. And I'm just plain Mike. So Yeah, but you have you have a great last name, which is Ryan. Man, do you know how hard it is to find an email address when your name is Mike Ryan? Yeah. I can't imagine.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

I had no issues with Christian.sharmula. Because it's always the longest email address there is. But Ryan has some some vibe to it.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Well, uh, thank you. I appreciate it, Chris. But again, uh, Chris is fine. Let's write it. Okay, let's go, let's go into it. I'll talk about one day, it'll be on the the Christmas episode this year. We'll talk about email email addresses or the sexiness of last name. Or how long it takes you to fill out paperwork with your name. You must run out of boxes all the time.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

And how tough it is to um let Austrians understand how to spell Rush. I think I'm I talked about before. It's very hard to explain. Yes. Yes. But um You know what? You know what's hard? What? As well? Um to understand what is just hype and what is just plain reality when we talk about AI and um how much AI will impact search.

Inside the London Executive E-commerce "Think Tank"

SPEAKER_01 1:42

And I think it's it's really, really a tough thing to dropped a hell of a transition on me, Chris. That was a that was that was smooth. I had some time to prepare.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

What are we going to talk about today?

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Yeah, well, Chris, I mean, let's think about it. Last couple of episodes, we talked about um um a report that where I was the the principal analyst called the ultimate guide to AI Max. Then we talked about a report put together um with some some partners called PPC Survey. And now it's time to put you in the hot seat. You did a boardroom presentation recently. I wanted think tank. Think tank. Excuse me. Excuse me.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

That sounds way cooler. I told him this was my intro. Guys, I have pressure is on I have a think tank session.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

Yeah, I feel like it's just the boardroom. Yeah, I feel like the CIA has like think tanks or something. Yeah. So tell us about your about your think about this think tank, Chris.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Yeah, I I think we we we talked briefly about it. Uh it was was in London, um, uh part of a um a convention we attended. And I had the chance to talk to I think roughly 20 high-level execs of of literally leading online online retailers, um, most of them active in Europe. And yeah, one one of the major topics was um to understand um there's so much AI noise going on. Yeah. Um, what what is noise? What is just noise and hype, and what is what is reality? And what can we learn from it uh with regards to the paid search playbook for 2026 and beyond, um, in order to be on the winning side. This was the the frame, and uh I think I did quite well. Uh because uh it was very very engaging to talk with with this uh CMOs. Uh uh it was really a great conversation, uh great conversations going on. And uh yeah, we we can go through a couple of items here because it's it's definitely interesting because not everything is reality. There's a lot of hype going on.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Definitely. Yeah, tell tell us a bit about what's hyped and also you know, I'd love to hear, you know, if you can, any any of the reactions um that you got to that stuff too.

AI Disruption: Reality vs. Industry Hype

SPEAKER_02 3:50

But I think I mean again, uh I think in one of our last episodes we talked. So I think uh three or four things I would like to to discuss today in in a bit more in detail is certainly um we we talk all the time about AI is going to disrupt paid search. Yeah. And we talked about that plenty of times. Yes. Um and as a matter of fact, I think it it requires a nuanced discussion because what we think is reality, uh Mike and I hope we can agree on it, because at least I stated it in my talk, so don't put me on the spot here. But is that if if if we think disruption in a way that people start to to use um generative AI services to get information for the purchasing journey, I think that statement is true. Um, there's a lot of data I can share with you which which uh supports that claim. Uh for instance, there's the a McKinsey's uh uh study done last year um in August. And the question was Um, what is the preferred information source for your purchasing uh journey? And I think the results are not that surprising. It was kind of an heterogeneous, and we can show the slide here, an heterogeneous uh set of answers. But the two dominating layers were classic search engines, such as Google and Bing. Okay, point taken. Fine with 31%. But already 44% of the people um asked uh as part of the survey claimed that AI-powered search is their preferred information uh source for the purchasing process, which is ChatGPD, Google AI, and you name it. Yeah. So 44%. It's it's it's clearly the more dominant and the more preferred uh information source. So this is one one one piece of information which I think uh supports the claim that yes, with regards to the statement that yes, people adopt these new AI services to get the purchasing information they need, that claim is reality.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

For sure. We can discuss about that, how you see it, but it's certainly not supporting the claim that it really disrupts the way you should do your search marketing right now. Because there's some data available which which indicates that this is not happening overnight.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I think that there's a probably hard to draw a line between disruption and transformation. And um, and it might also be a matter of perspective, like the eye of the beholder. Um, because if you're the benefactor of that, then it's easy to say it was transformation. And if you were on the losing side, you might feel disrupted. But um I I agree. I think there's clearly a big shift happening, something we have to call a transformation. Um but to call it a disruption, we don't know that yet. There needs to be uh a certain amount of speed and impact um that that is not clear yet. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Uh a closer on that. And I again just just just because of the fact that we look at the massive trajectory here, uh, it it doesn't mean that it impacts your core campaign, you know, revenue uh uh contribution that significantly to to to to to massively shift your priorities and and and focus. And this was one of the conversations I had with with this with a couple of of the C players here. Okay, Chris, we we we understand that data and we understand that the claims here, but but how to shift the balance now, right? We we have our core campaign set up, which is PMAX, standard shirts, you name it. And on the other hand, we see this massive trajectory that people start to use other surfaces. Yes. And this is, I think, the one of the major questions for a lot of online online retailers, how how to balance that that that shift. And I think um, and at least this this is the statement I really believe in is uh that that balancing of focus is is more important than ever because the future of search will look different. We we also talked about that, yeah. But we are right at the beginning. So the ecosystem you're operating on in is is not changing overnight. Yeah. This I think this is the main claim. Prepare yourself, yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. But but your core campaigns will be the major revenue drivers for you, for the for the foreseeable future. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

I I I agree. I think that's I mean, Google it's not that like um the advertisers or the or the businesses are the only ones who have something to lose here. Like Google can't bump the table. They have skin in the game as well. This is a large majority of their advertising revenue. So it has to be managed. And the the good news, I mean, it's good and bad, but the more dominant they become, which it kind of starts to look like that. Um, but the more dominant they become, the more they're allowed to control that pace, the less they have to react to challengers and stuff like that. And so I I mean, obviously there are concerns about an incumbent becoming even more powerful, perhaps. Um, but there are it's always a trade-off. There are benefits to that as well. Yes, for sure, for sure.

Agentic Commerce: Why Amazon is Suing Perplexity

SPEAKER_02 9:02

And the last time I checked, Alphabet is a Nasdaq listed company uh and and top and bottom line matters to them. And and they won't they won't do massive disruptive things to to their advertising ecosystem. Yeah. We tackle this many times. Yes. So what what what I see is that yes, there is there is a massive trajectory going on that that people adopt these new generative AI surfaces, but that doesn't mean that we are now flipping the script from classic advertising ecosystem to a full Atlantic commerce world overnight. Yeah, yeah. And this and we have to understand that, right? Um, and there's there's one case which which I found really funny is I mean, and maybe this is very telling to where we are right now. I mean, the Amazon versus perplexity stuff. You heard about that? Yeah, yeah. Which is so telling that Atlantic Commerce is just Do you want to spell that out for people? Of course, of course. Because it it's so telling that there's so many things still unclear. In this case, and this was the fun part uh to start with, Amazon is not the villain, but the victim. Can you imagine that? Unheard of. Uh, and basically uh perplexity uh has has has their product um and and uh basically they offer more or less an end-to-end shopping assistant assistant. Yeah, and uh yes, the shopping assistant is also buying on Amazon. Yeah, and Amazon claims now um that there are uh areas of conflict here which are not solved at all. A their terms of use are for forbidding bots, right? And they say whatever perplexity does here, it's very close to a bot. Um and on top of that, it it's it it's uh spoofed more or less because Amazon doesn't even know that it's a it's an it's an agent. Yes, but it's it's boofed as uh as as Google Chrome traffic.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Yeah. Uh and it and then you know it's someone has given authorization, so it looks like an authorized user.

SPEAKER_02 10:59

Exactly. And through that, it's bypassing all the safety guardrails of Amazon. So basically, this is the the identity is is not clarified. What does that mean? And probably the the way more important motivation for Amazon to bring this to court uh against perplexity is that all the ad ecosystem within Amazon, yeah, Amazon ads, uh recommendation engines, it's not working with agents.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:26

You know, it there's no human being anymore clicking a buy button. Everything is running more or less through the API. Yes. Um so uh billions of dollars of advertising revenue are at costs as well. And and then of course the question of um of accountability. If something goes wrong, who is accountable for it? So I think we're in in a wild, wild west situation. Yeah. And as long as there is no clarity and this is not happening overnight, this enchanted commerce. Yes, it's the future of search to a certain degree, but again, it's it's not happening uh from one day to another.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yeah, and and it's so funny with um with Amazon as well, because like um there's another news story about small business owners complaining that Amazon is selling their products without permission. Yes. Amazon is saying, like, hey, this is not cool. You have to ask as permission or it has to be mediated through us. And then Amazon turns around. And I I feel like this is very stupid behavior if they want to win that court case. Yes, of course. Because if I would be Perplexity's legal team, I'm not a lawyer, but I assume that this is that this is very undermining of Amazon's case.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

It's a shit show. And to give context to listeners, Amazon has a product, I think it's called Buy For Me. It's I think uh a feature of the Rufus product. And yes, that's what they do here. They have a shopping assistant, more or less, which is buying, uh primarily searching on Amazon. But if the product is not available, then it will go to another website. And the websites are like, holy shit, I get I get sales from Amazon, but I'm not even listening on it. I I I think it's stupid. Yeah. And another thing is I I think Amazon just feels way better to be the villain.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Maybe maybe they did it for that reason. Jeff Bezos, he just he just fucking looks like Lex Luthor. You know, I can't. I'm sorry, but from from a gig driving in the Honda Civic to this test is to run. Did you ever see there was one time he was in like a m a literal mech suit one time? It's uh I don't know. Do you know that? Yeah, yeah. But um, yeah, I mean, there we're just in this um permissionless era and an era of like everyone's taking liberties and then everyone's complaining that liberties are being taken against them. Yes. And you know, I read about this uh like Claude or Anthropic, and they're supposed to be kind of like the moral high ground in all of this. And they had a they had it, they had a program, they had a program to buy and destroy books that they this is back when they were training their models. There was a team whose job it was to buy books, rip the covers off of them and identifying information, and scan the pages at scale. They turned like all of human knowledge into like a slurry or a paste of of just text to go into the models. And those are the those are supposed to be the good guys in all this. Yes, yeah, and then all drives.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

But if we if we put all the things, sorry, I'm just but if we put them emotions aside, yeah. Uh I think this is this is the statement, and it it's kind of controversial, but uh every every business with limited resources, and I'm not just talking about money, but but but resources in terms of smart people's uh people, please don't do this full switch. Don't focus 90% of your best people on enchanted commerce because it's not happening overnight. The data clearly shows this. Well, let's talk about do we want to talk about Chat GPT? Ah what's going on there? My favorite guy, Sam.

Sam Altman's Screw Up: Why ChatGPT Stepped Back from Shopping

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Yeah. Do you like him? You know my feelings. No, but and because I, you know, I I honestly I this is inappropriate of of me to say, but no one would listen to a podcast if it were just appropriate all the time. Spit it out. I I worry about that guy's personal safety. I I'm starting to worry because I mean, after just a few months, they stepped back from shopping, which was one of their only paths to making money. To make money. And and and what they had, by the way, as it turns out, I mean, and there was a bunch of research to back this up from different areas, but as it turns out, as it turns out, they basically were just scraping Google shopping. Just imagine you've invested tens of billions of dollars in a company. Yes. And one of their main monetization strategies is to be a thin Google shopping wrapper. Yes. Your competitor who could stop it at any time, probably. I don't even know why they allowed it. And then they walk away after a few months. Maybe Google sent them a cease and desist behind the scenes. We don't know.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Might be the case because it doesn't make sense at all to to to shut this down after a couple of months. It just doesn't make sense. Because again, it's the only only for me, yeah, existing path to reduce the burn rate.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

But if you thought that e-commerce was going to be easy and just happen, it takes time. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Again, the statements we made about this. Yeah, uh every everyone who who thinks that these new players arrive and and yes, they have their LLMs, but to build an ecosystem, to buy and to advertise, to let advertising happen on scale. Google it it took Google years to to perfect this, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Um yes, and and that's the case. Google's nearly the only one who has solved it. Maybe Amazon, I mean, but these are the two players at this point. These are the two players. In a genetic commerce, yeah.

Google's Undeniable Dominance in the AI Advertising Ecosystem

SPEAKER_02 16:51

And by the way, maybe this leads me to the to the third noise, layer of noise uh I I wanted to unpack uh today is uh and and it's the perfect segue. Everyone who thinks that there will be new players on on the block is right. There will be new players on the block. But anyone who thinks that they will eat significantly into the market share of Google, you are wrong, fella. Yeah. Unfortunately. By the way, I have been wrong here too. Because one year ago I I said it's the first time Google faces real competition. Well, I mean that was true. It was true, but it turns out the competition is is is not not moving the needle here, Mike. It's it's it's fascinating. I mean, the the move ChatGPD uh communicated uh uh now and it's the dominance of Google and the way Google uh embeds the the the the idea of AI into their advertising ecosystem is just second to none. I'm more bullish on Alphabet than ever. Yeah. I don't know if you see it differently, but um Google the dominance of Google will not be broken. For sure not.

Future-Proofing Feeds: Google's New Conversational Attributes

SPEAKER_01 18:01

No, I I I agree and I I mean I want to talk you tell me when it fits in. Like I want to talk about the about the new attributes and their their strategy for how they approach. Yeah, that's that's uh of course. I mean um like Google announced a while back that they would be having these dozens of new conversational attributes, they call them. And um I can't go into too much detail here, uh just because it's not an NDA. You sold your soul. Well, it's not all it's not all public knowledge yet, but I mean I think it's fair to talk about it in a at a high level, a strategic level. You know, we talked um that in some ways this feels like it's very fascinating. It feels like an admission that AI alone is not up to the task. Um it it emphasizes how important this infrastructure layer really is. And Google has so many merchant centers and merchants and feeds and all this data out there, and they've built their product graph on it, and they have just years and years of advantage there, where you see why open AI wants to scrape them. But you know, they're also kind of saying that that's not enough. They need even more, they need more structured data. Um, and but what I would say is a bit new to this conversation. Something that I found interesting at a high level is that um when you look at these attributes, there are ones that are just net new, let's say. And there's also there's places where they're just doing a lot to kind of close gaps. You know, they're closing gaps with the open AI feed. And I don't it remains to be seen how relevant that will that will be. But they're closing gaps with Meta's feed. And I think it's I think it's a two-way strategy, and it goes towards what you're saying of just further cementing their power because um it makes it that like, you know, I think why they close those gaps. On the one hand, you they want the Google feed to be the authoritative feed. Yes. That's that feed that you should use. If you're gonna advertise on these other channels or appear organically or whatever the case might be, like, so be it. They can't stop you from doing that. But then their their feed should then power that. Like it's you should be focusing your effort on your Google feed because you know your Google feed will cover channels X, Y, and Z. Um and the other thing is that you know, if you're investing effort in these other attributes in OpenAI or Meta or elsewhere, um, then Google should be able to ingest and benefit from that data. Um and so it's just, you know, it just furthers these these flywheel-like effects that are already in place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Oh, for for sure. And uh by the way, uh maybe maybe this is a a nice segue to uh to to the probably most important question. Okay, given given this ecosystem we live in here, and again, that the ecosystem won't dramatically change. Yes, there will be adoption of these new AI surfaces, but but the but the ad inventory, the campaigns which serve also this this new AI surface, it rema it it's the power pack. It's the things you know and make sure that you do everything in your power to focus on that. Because this will be decisive for your for your for your outcomes. And um, talking about that uh uh the things you you you unpacked now with this new conversational data feed, what is it, fields, layers, how to attributes. Yeah. Um I think this is a very, very important question because this was was was one topic a lot of guys were interested in. Okay, what to look at now to make this data feed future proof. Yes. Um what what is your take on it? Because um the data feed will be in the center of everything. Yeah. Um what to look at?

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Um I mean I I think what Google wants here is that um we're taking things that might exist anywhere else on your website or in your business knowledge and and bringing them in there. So, you know, uh it's this idea that it is There's stuff from your from your Q ⁇ A's that could be surfaced? Is there stuff from um from reviews? People have been integrating reviews in a long time, but I think there's you know much more semantic ways of doing that. And um everything because Google's own product taxonomy is not that detailed, actually. Um and that's why they it's really important that you have your product types to help support that so that you've got a clear taxonomy, um, as detailed as it can be, supplementary, and that you've got um any any place from your descriptions and your titles, like at this point, I talked about books getting chopped up earlier, but you but you should think of every piece of semantic or language-based knowledge that exists somewhere. That's it. And how can you help transport this into your into your feed? Um, how can you do things to give that in a structured way to Google? Because then you're alleviating some of the lifting that they would have to do otherwise. By the way, super smart move.

SPEAKER_02 23:02

Yes. Uh to outsource that that last mind. Um and I think to to to really focus on this semantic conversational layer. I think this will be absolutely this this will be the biggest key. By the way, next to native commercial requirements that you have you really are as precise as possible with the total cost thing, like taxes, return, uh uh fees, whatever. I think this will be very important. But uh going back to adding this conversational layer, um, there's a there's a quite a quite a statement. And I have I've never seen a dedicated statement uh of Google here. I hope I'm allowed to share it. But when I was in Dublin, uh I talked to very high-level XX. My question was: do you already see a change in search patterns for the people or with regards to people who are now using AI mode? And they they said yes. Yeah. What they see it immediately, what they saw immediately is that that the length of the search trays are already at the 2.5x compared to classic search products. Yeah. So people adopt this more conversational, more natural language again. Yeah. And I think this perfectly meets the requirements, right? People search different, and you have to meet that somewhere with your data structure.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Absolutely. And then um, you know, a while back now, I I um did an interview with Ginny Marvin and she I asked her about that, and um, she had a lot of statistics at her fingertips there. So I don't remember them all, but it's definitely worth going and checking out that interview because I was pretty stunned by what she said. You can really see that search is changing fast. And we no longer have to repeat the same 15% of search terms every day are new kind of stuff that Google said for years because there's a material change happening now. Yes, it is a material. Um, and and you know, I think ultimately the sense of these um these attributes is to help it's you know that you hear about grounding in AI, like it helps the AI not hallucinate, it helps it get things right, have details, and this is all grounding for the AI because when people start asking very specific questions about products, the AI, if it doesn't have the detail available, doesn't know. It it won't know. But the the AI doesn't know what it doesn't know. It will just invent a plausible answer. Um it just will say it'll say like this is statistically and I mean it's an oversimplification, but um, and so this is all grounding material so that it has the data available. It doesn't have to guess, but it can take on that and then in draw some inferences and yeah, yeah. I I uh for sure uh uh co-sign that.

Who Should Own Product Data? (Marketing vs. Siloed Product Managers)

SPEAKER_02 25:41

And uh one one one uh CDO of a very, very big big player um based in the UK asked me from our perspective, who what is the most important interface to look at to make to get an understanding how the product information should look like in the future? And I told them, look, the days, and this has always been that way, but the days where you have a very much inside-outside driven approach in terms of that you have a product manager sitting somewhere in the silo and thinks, this is the information um I I get this information from from a brand and this is how we should do it. If you do it that way and you real and you don't manage the interface to the people who are really in the market, your online marketing experts. Yes, if you don't manage this interface properly, you will lose. Yeah. Because hopefully the market will tell you how the people search now. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Um so yeah, this is Yeah. I uh I I think it's a great point. And it remains to be seen how much um transparency we'll get into those conversations. Um but that that is one area uh, you know, with AI Max, it's still in development. It seems a bit paused, but they're working on this thing called synthetic keywords. And that's the exact purpose of that is to take these uh very long queries and prompts and so on, and create something digestible that you can see and learn from. Um and that's the perfect, that's the perfect way where you can really you can then learn from the market, exactly which attributes, etc. Exactly.

Making Unified Data Actionable: Turning Feeds into Bidding Signals

SPEAKER_02 27:11

And and I think uh to to all, I don't know, people who can really take decisions and to set up your organization the best way possible. You have to really empower your your online marketing people to to have a have a say, right, with regards to data feed structure, to product information. This is one of one of one of the the big misunderstandings, I think, that the product information, product data has to be defined by the people who manage the products. Yes, to a certain degree. But what's really going on is is in in the market, right? Yeah, and Google is is the market, let's face it. Yes. Um I mean Mike, uh maybe one last thing before before we wrap it up. Um because uh this is also something by the way, I I quoted you. Oh, thanks. I said one of the I I want I want I want to share some some uh roses with you here now. Okay. I said one of the smartest e-commerce pride uh minds in the world, Mike Ryan, luckily is working for us, and you said algorithms think per auction with no view longer than a month's budget. Why I'm it's a great quote. Thanks, yeah. And why I'm stating this is because we talked now about making the data a labelable, structured, unified. But anyone who thinks that the job is done, yeah, to quote the great Kobe Bryant job is not done. Yeah, yeah. It starts right there because you have to think about how to make this data actionable. Yes. Uh and and and I I I think there's and I would like really love to show that slide because if you have this data available, this data is basically your context window that algorithms can learn on. Yeah. And the context window on the one hand is of course to provide that data and to to think about how I can put this into signals that the algorithms really can work with it. And the signals in the ecosystem we're living in today are segmenting your products according to the data you have and what you want to achieve with regards to your business goals, put it in the right campaign structure and use budget and target role settings, not just as a goal. Yes. I repeated that statement there. Uh we talked about this in one of our episodes. Yeah, we did it earlier this year. I'm really emotional about this because we we it it's so shallow sometimes that we always talk about, yeah, you have to have the right data structure. Yeah, yes, but this is just the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 29:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:33

And some people really uh something that broke out there now. I think we're good. We're good. Uh but but but this is just the beginning. So you really have to think about how to put this into signals that the algorithm algorithms work as hard as possible for you.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Yeah, exactly. Um yeah, so I mean, helping these systems understand your business goals, um, your product data, your semantic data. Like, yes, because uh the ultimately it's so funny, like they're having conversations. Um, they're they're like your distributed salesforce. They're having conversations with your potential customers who are shopping around. Um, and there's this wealth of knowledge from past customers and the forms of reviews and QA and all kinds of stuff like that. And that's why they want to tap into that. Because that's the same type of thing I do if I'm shopping something. I look at the reviews or QA. Um right now it kind of sucks doing that. But if the AI can do that digging for me, then it's a beautiful dig. Of course.

SPEAKER_02 30:39

And let's think beyond that. All all the highly business relevant data, uh, return rates, basket data, price competitiveness. I think you really have to think it very much unified. And that's that's that's a challenge in itself. But it it doesn't stop there. If you have this unified data layer, you have to think about how to make it actionable. Yes. And um I don't know. This is this is huge. And I I I I got some very interesting feedback because I thought it maybe this is too operational for CMOs of this world, but actually it's not. They they really understand the challenge here. And uh I highly appreciate it. Yeah.

Slides Offer And Closing

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Oh, that's great. Um well, thanks for sharing that with us. From the officially, in my mind now, it was a CIA think tank, and you can't change it. It was a massive think tank, and we we discussed the path to global wall domination. That's another one we're gonna talk about that, right? Hey, I'm on the hook on that one. I'm on the hook on that one. So no, thanks.

SPEAKER_02 31:44

Thanks for the time, Mark. Yeah. Uh by the way, anyone who's interested in uh getting this slide tech uh slide tech, uh I I present it. Uh give us a shout out. We'll do for sure. Some some interesting stuff in there.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

Absolutely. Then thank you, Chris. And uh yeah, let's let's wrap it up for this week. It was a pleasure, sir. Absolutely. This has been another episode of Growing E-Commerce. And as always, this is brought to you by Smarter Ecommerce, also known as SMEC. You can learn more at smarter-e-commerce.com. And actually, I think if you go in our web navigation in there and our web taxonomy, you'll find something called a content repository where Chris's uh content is probably already in there. Every webinar, talk, report, everything we ever do basically is is all unified there. So uh go check it out. There's a ton of great stuff there. All right. Thanks again. We'll see you next time. Bye, everyone. Bye.