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R/GA, Marketing Agency

THE COMMERCE
LANDSCAPE IS
UNDERGOING A
FUNDAMENTAL SHIFT

One of the biggest priorities for brands today is driving demand among consumers facing economic pressure. Brands face stiff competition within the commerce landscape, driven by rapidly evolving marketplaces, social channels, and the integration of AI. This new report from R/GA explores how brands can find new ways to stand out in order to capture an even more elusive sale.

  • Multimodal Shopping Blends Discovery and Purchase

    Today’s shopping journey is multimodal. Consumers balance intent, emotional and functional needs, and dynamic behaviors as they fluidly move between distinct interaction surfaces.

  • How Platforms are Embracing the Shopping Journey

    Commerce has fragmented across platforms catering to rapidly evolving consumer behaviors and expectations. Differentiated brand experiences can unite Discovery with Purchase.

  • AI Creates a New Playbook for Brands

    AI is not just another channel; it’s becoming an intelligent layer across the entire consumer journey, reshaping expectations for personalization, assistance, and even agency.

  • Dueling Imperatives Compete for Brand Attention

    As AI adoption accelerates and economic growth stagnates, brands face a difficult challenge: to deliver results today while building for an unpredictable tomorrow.

THIS COMPLEX, FAST-MOVING ENVIRONMENT DEMANDS A NEW APPROACH.

ADAPTIVE
COMMERCE

AN INTEGRATED COMMERCE FRAMEWORK FOR THE INTELLIGENCE AGE.

Adaptive Commerce is designed for an era of constant change, centered on continuously understanding and responding to the customer with relevance and value.

THE 4 PILLARS OF ADAPTIVE COMMERCE

To help brands connect with consumers on a deeper level, we developed a framework built on four essential pillars of adaptability. This framework outlines the shifts brands should prioritize today and plan for next.

  • 1

    From Information
    to Intelligent
    Discovery

    If consumers (or their AI agents) can’t find you, nothing else matters.

    That means showing up in traditional search, marketplaces, visual search, and, increasingly, in LLM-powered results. Brands must rethink SEO for the AI era—treating content not just as marketing, but as machine-readable guidance for intelligent systems.

  • 2

    From
    Omnichannel to Multimodal

    Your commerce touchpoints must flex to match a shopper’s mode—whether they’re casually browsing or urgently buying.

    That calls for modular design systems, real-time personalization, and headless architectures that serve content dynamically based on context and behavior.

  • 3

    From Monologue to Intimate
    Dialogue

    Forget personalization-as-usual. Consumers now expect interactions that feel like a conversation—context-aware, brand-specific, and helpful across channels.

    That requires consolidating core customer data (purchase history, preferences), training AI in your tone of voice, and designing experiences that evolve with each touchpoint.

  • 4

    From Static
    to Predictive Brand Expression

    In an AI-generated world, sameness is a creeping threat. Brands must encode their unique DNA—visually, verbally, and experientially—into the systems that shape customer interactions.

    This isn’t just about consistency. It’s about building a living, promptable brand that shows up intelligently and unmistakably, even when you’re not in control of the interface.

THIS IS JUST
THE BEGINNING

To understand this rapidly changing landscape, R/GA surveyed 8,716 consumers across 13 markets spanning five regions. Our report provides a deep dive into the research and a comprehensive roadmap across each of the 4 pillars of the Adaptive Commerce framework.

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