Among the many advancements AI has posed across industries, perhaps the transformation in commerce has been the most palpable. From reshaping lead generation, customer experience, data analysis and revenue driving strategies, automation has pushed commerce from an era guided by the digital salesperson toward one increasingly mediated by intelligent systems and AI agents.

Take Amazon’s Rufus, for instance. As an AI assistant introduced by the world’s leading e-commerce platform in 2024, Rufus aims to make shopping faster and easier via personalized product recommendations and predictive analytics and pulled an extra $10 billion in sales for Amazon last year.

Walmart’s Sparky, introduced in June 2025, similarly synthesizes reviews, offers occasion-based recommendations and helps customers plan and compare their purchases through reordering, service booking and accessibility features. In under a year since its integration by the world’s largest company, the smiley-faced button has already increased order value by 35%, with at least 27% of its customers trusting AI-powered recommendations and alerts.

Now, then, the industry has officially moved on to the automated, predictive and cold system-driven era. Digital commerce has never been more efficient, yet 79% of consumers say it feels lonely. What would happen if digital sales were an emotionally engaging experience?

Regardless of the hyper-efficiency, tailored customer journeys and dynamic communication that the technology poses, automation has created a loophole effect in the form of a warmth deficit, by which consumers miss connection, empathy and relational cues, otherwise offered by digital salespeople.

The algorithm’s blind spot

Even through screens, digital salespeople offered curated, guided and human-centric services. For them, technology serves as an enabler of connection rather than a detractor; 74% of customers expect online capabilities to match in-person and phone service; they don’t separate digital and physical dimensions.

As any retailer or salesperson knows, met expectations result in engagement. At least 86% of buyers prefer virtual selling over face-to-face meetings with the preference rising to 92% among millennials and Gen-Z customers.

According to research published in the Industrial Marketing Management journal, the auditory and visual cues created by digital salespeople do simulate in-person interactions. However, they are not as information-rich: buyers are deprived of essentials, including body language and intonation cues.

The challenge is not automation itself, but designing systems that can execute transactions efficiently while still sustaining human relationships.

In customer service, for example, 68% of respondents of a February 2026 YouGov survey reported they were not confident in the way firms use AI when interacting with them and more than half said they did not believe organizations would use the technology responsibly.

As the continuation of the most important relationship in business, customer service is where digital commerce’s paradox plays out in real time: algorithms are masters of anticipating needs, but fail at anticipating feelings.

While they bet on modernization and leveraging emerging technologies, companies are risking trust  which has shifted from “I-trust-this-brand” to “I-trust-this-delivery-process”. Sure, packages arrive on time and digitally native generations initially embrace technological evolution. But, as the emotional bond frays, questions about key relational sustainability emerge where sales has traditionally excelled.

A loyal stranger

AI and machine learning have posed a revolutionary challenge in how firms train their sales employees. Now, as per scholars, the technologies oblige reductions in how much time sales professionals spend learning to excel in the digital realm; efficiency in regards to how firms will aid digital immigrants, including older stakeholders who might not be well-versed in screen interactions; and the assertion of optimal scripts and processes for a new sales pitching world.

The transformation has also moved beyond basic automation and become a strategic requirement for competitive advantage. Those firms which fail to integrate autonomous, data-driven systems risk being marginalized in markets defined by real-time customer expectation, another 2025 research paper 
noted.

Conversely, the technology has also transformed how customers are treated. Current ecommerce platforms promise personalized experiences, as 
77% of consumers expect, but many still rely on traditional methods such as banners, carousels and exit pop-ups that don’t change with the session.