Our analysts (or “bakers”) will compete in a Great British Bake Off–style episode, discussing how the digital shelf for ecommerce will adapt to speak to AI audiences and how retailers will counter AI’s rise by connecting with customers IRL. Listen to the discussion with Vice President of Content and host Suzy Davidkhanian, Principal Analyst Sky Canaves, and Senior Analyst Blake Droesch.
Despite that solid growth there is growing cause for concern about the broader environment ahead.
AI influenced $262 billion in global holiday sales, but most impact came from chatbots and behind-the-scenes customer service, not from shopping assistants.
Agentic AI is reshaping commerce by removing friction from the middle of the funnel. As shoppers delegate comparison, evaluation, and planning to AI agents, the journey from intent to action is accelerating, raising the stakes for trust, transparency, and brand presence in fewer, faster interactions.
This FAQ examines what's verifiable about ad blocking today and what marketers should watch in 2026.
Phasing out the de minimis exemption has transformed the US ecommerce landscape, but an adverse Supreme Court decision could upend the policy’s legal footing.
To simplify shopping for customers in 2026, retailers will provide curated product selections online and in-store, experts told EMARKETER. This will also strengthen loyalty and improve the shopping experience, attracting new customers and encouraging them to return regularly in the year ahead.
OpenAI seeks real consumer intent, and a potential Pinterest acquisition would give OpenAI first-party shopping signals and native ad infrastructure to rival Google and Meta.
US holiday shopping remained strong, Fiserv pursued agentic commerce, and Zoomex launched a crypto-backed credit card.
Annual fee revenues tripled as affluent users flock to luxury rewards, reversing a decade-long trend—and fintechs seek to pick up consumers issuers left behind.
Starbucks is sponsoring the second season of Amazon Prime’s reality competition “Beast Games: Strong vs. Smart” to try to reignite brand buzz.
Visa and Mastercard reached a new settlement with merchants to lower fees in the US this November—another attempt to end a roughly 20-year fight in the courts, per SEC filings. The modest interchange reductions and new ability to steer customers away from higher-fee cards offer meaningful cost relief for small and midsize retailers that consumers may be more willing to support by using another card. However, those concessions are unlikely to move the needle for large national chains. They don’t materially change their economics, nor do they address the fundamental issue that networks and issuers still hold most of the pricing power.
2025 was a big year for cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency payment users grew 24.8%, to 4.9 million US adults, per our forecast. Between institutional buy-in and unprecedented support at the highest levels of the US government, the crypto market hit record highs—before plummeting in the final months of the year. Crypto gained mainstream momentum, but its volatility hasn’t changed. For banks and crypto infrastructures, this unpredictability kneecaps efforts to integrate crypto as an accepted currency at the point-of-sale.
In 2026, commerce will thread itself even more tightly into the platforms consumers already use, whether they're watching TV, scrolling TikTok, or browsing a retailer’s site. Streamers will hunt for new revenues beyond subscriptions and ads, fashion shoppers will polarize toward luxury or low-cost, and TikTok Shop will transition from experiment to expectation. Meanwhile, creators will embed more directly into retail environments as brands seek safer, more strategic partnerships.
Next year will bring shifts that redefine how networks operate, how brands show up, and how performance is measured. Here are three predictions for commerce media in 2026.
28% of retail commerce media decision-makers in North America and Europe say they review and approve creatives manually but lack automation or dynamic capabilities, according to November 2025 data from Koddi and Forrester Consulting.
Saks Global's high-risk bet on Neiman Marcus has backfired, saddling it with considerable debt, limiting its ability to compete and sending it spiraling toward bankruptcy.
News about delayed tariffs, activist pressure on retailers, and a failed JC Penney deal closed out 2025.
Half of US adults say AI videos will push them away—raising risks for brands appearing near low-quality content.