Artificial intelligence is moving so fast that the line between online and in-store shopping may soon disappear altogether. Within a few years, digital retailers could replicate – and even surpass – the sensory experience once unique to bricks-and-mortar stores. And when that happens, the very nature of marketplaces will change.

That’s the prediction from Nitzan Mekel-Bobrov, chief AI officer at Ebay, who believes the retail industry is standing on the edge of a once-in-a-generation shift. Speaking with Inside Retail’s Amie Larter for the latest Retail Transformers video series, Mekel-Bobrov says AI is no longer just a tool for automation – it’s becoming the engine of customer experience.

“We’re at the very start of the AI journey, but it’s moving incredibly fast,” he says. “AI will soon let consumers blend shopping, social, entertainment and even work into a single, seamless experience. It’s creating connections between systems that never spoke to each other before – and its ability to infer and reason is improving every day.”

Nitzan joined Ebay about four and a half years ago in a role he describes as “really about transformation”. 

“It’s about transforming the experience for our entire what we call Ebay community, which is inclusive of our sellers, our buyers, but also our employees. How do we transform that experience with technology? Well, nowadays, there’s nothing more powerful than AI to drive that transformation. 

“Nothing is off limits in terms of where we leverage AI, with the caveat that it needs to be at the benefit of this Ebay community. So we go from very visual experiences to the core of search recommendations, we protect our customers with AI in the space of fraud and trust, and of course, on the selling side, as we will talk about, we have rolled out a variety of solutions to help our sellers with their business.”

Mekel-Bobrov predicts that, in the longer term, the role of marketplaces will evolve considerably. 

“For a marketplace like Ebay, while our core mission – creating economic opportunity for all – will stay the same, the way in which we do that will continue to evolve. Part of that will be enabling sellers to get closer to their buyers using AI rather than automating that relationship.

“There are many things that our sellers would love to be able to do for each and every individual buyer they have, but they just don’t have the time. AI will let them do that. AI will let sellers show up on Ebay in an even more unique and personal way [that aligns with] their own brand and businesses. So it will become a marketplace of many different personalised experiences, from both the seller’s and the buyer’s perspectives. 

“The step change over the last couple of years in what AI can do is truly transformational, as AI is now so generalisable. You don’t need a little AI solution for every little workflow or every problem customer experience solution that you’re building; instead, you can have a single AI solution that solves many of these. What that means for a customer in retail is they don’t need to know how to navigate on the retailer’s or platform’s terms; we can meet them where they are. If the AI can understand what the customer is trying to do or what they’re looking for very deeply, then we could solve that problem in their own language, on their own terms, where they’re located,” he continues.

“Ebay has been around for 30 years. We have amazing data, especially on the unique products we sell and how they move through our ecosystem. We want to use that history and data to shape what online shopping and online marketplaces are all about in the future.” 

But he cautions that the technology’s use “has got to be real”. The curated use of AI is essential, he says; it is not about adopting AI everywhere. 

Personalisation as a guided experience

When it comes to personalisation, the most exciting results for Mekel-Bobrov’s team working with AI have been on the visual experiences. “There are a number of categories that we focus on, like fashion, for example, which are very visual in their nature. A customer may have an idea in their mind, but they would have a very hard time communicating it in a standard keyword-based search. 

“Those types of visual experiences are also highly personal. What appeals to one person in the concept of formal wear or boho chic would be very different from what appeals to another. With AI, instead of putting several images in front of a group of customers, we can have an endless number of variants that showcase even a single outfit in many different styles, and appeal to the personal preferences of every customer.”

Ebay has also been looking to improve text-based interactions on its site, testing its agentic AI and conversational experiences with customers. The goal is to continuously adapt the user experience based on the engagement and conversation they are having. 

“To me, that’s really what it means to meet a customer where they’re at. The customer gets to guide the journey, the conversation. They can go deep into a different area and pop back up, or they can pivot even from imagery. They’re able to say,’ I like that, but show me more with a slightly different twist’.”

Mekel-Bobrov is challenging his teams to leapfrog personalisation and go to full individualisation.

“Personalisation is actually based on persona, not person. When I show up for a shopping moment, I want to be met in a way that’s individual to me.”

Accordingly, Ebay’s email marketing is evolving so that every email is completely unique to each customer. 

“That’s hundreds of millions of emails, as you can imagine, that may go out for any campaign. That type of individualisation is the bar we’re trying to reach for all of our experiences.”

• Watch the interview online to see Mekel-Bobrov talk about the importance of authenticity, the importance of empowering staff and sellers to be part of the AI journey, thus taking away some of the fear factor of the technology, and why trust is the foundation of everything the company does with technology.