As consumers rely on personal AI to make shopping decisions, Maju Kuruvilla, former Amazon technology leader and founder and CEO of Spangle AI, argues that retailers must deploy intelligent agents to stay visible, drive conversions and translate intent into bottom-line revenue.

For 25 years, the digital retail playbook focused on driving traffic to a brand’s website and optimizing the on-site path to purchase. Today, that model is shifting as personal AI assistants fundamentally alter how consumers discover products and make buying decisions. To adapt, enterprise retailers need more than visibility tools—they need intelligent agent systems capable of bridging the gap between rich consumer intent and operational retail realities.

Here, Kuruvilla breaks down why AI investments must be judged by commercial outcomes rather than vanity metrics, how Spangle helps brands like Express scale AI-attributed revenue, and what it takes to turn static enterprise data into dynamic, automated commerce execution.

Sourcing Journal: How are the fundamentals of e-commerce changing in regard to product discovery and the deployment of AI agents?

Maju Kuruvilla: For the last 25 years, retailers have built their digital businesses around getting customers to their websites and helping them find products once they arrive. Search, advertising, navigation, recommendations and personalization have all been optimized around that model.

Instead of searching for products and browsing through dozens of options, consumers can increasingly describe what they’re trying to accomplish.

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