13 Aug

AI in Ecommerce: Will Apps Survive the Age of AI Agents?

Hero banner: AI in Ecommerce with a shopping cart showing orange app icons and a teal network diagram on a dark blue background.

This is a guest post by Garry Egan, founder of InterLinks Automated Linking for Shopify.

Ask any app developer what keeps them up at night, and you will hear the same answer. It is not competition from other apps. It is the platform itself.

AI in ecommerce has moved fast. Shopify has Sidekick and Magic. Amazon has Rufus. Wix builds entire stores with AI. Every major platform now ships intelligence as a native feature.

So here is the uncomfortable question for merchants and developers alike. Will apps even exist in five years? Or will one AI agent rule them all?

Let's dig into what is really happening, and what you should do about it.

Will Apps Exist in Five Years?

The short answer: yes. But they will not look the way they do today.

Apps will not die. The interface will. Instead of opening an email marketing app, a merchant will simply say, "Win back customers who haven't bought in 60 days." An AI agent will build the campaign.

The app becomes invisible plumbing. A shipping-rates app still calculates rates. But the agent calls its API silently. The merchant never sees its dashboard.

Why the Doomsayers Are Probably Wrong

Every few years, someone declares an interface dead. The track record is not great:

  • Web apps were supposed to kill native apps. They didn't.
  • Voice assistants like Alexa were supposed to end screens back in 2014. They didn't.
  • QR codes "died" for a decade. Then they came back stronger than ever.

Interfaces outlive predictions. Habits, trust, and edge cases keep them alive far longer than analysts expect.

The Novice Gap Nobody Talks About

Here is the part the AI hype machine ignores. Most store owners are not techies.

Think about an Etsy seller moving to her own store. She wants "install, click, done." She does not want to learn prompt engineering.

A blank text box is intimidating. An app shows you what is possible. A discount app displays "BOGO," "percentage off," and "free shipping" as buttons. The merchant did not even know to ask for those options.

We have seen this movie before. Power users loved the DOS command line. The masses waited for Windows 95. Today, raw AI chat is DOS. Apps are Windows.

The likely future? Apps become AI wrappers. A product-description tool becomes "upload a photo, and AI writes copy in your brand voice." AI on the inside, friendly buttons on the outside.

What Happens When Platforms Build the One App?

This is the real threat, and it is already here.

Shopify Magic writes product descriptions natively. That single feature erased the edge of standalone copywriting apps overnight. Shopify Sidekick now handles store tasks through simple chat commands. Amazon's Rufus guides shoppers through purchases.

Developers have a name for this: Sherlocking.

A Short History of Sherlocking

The term comes from Apple, which has absorbed successful apps for decades:

  • Apple killed the file-search app Watson with Spotlight.
  • It killed f.lux with Night Shift.
  • It killed Duet Display with Sidecar.

Ecommerce platforms follow the same playbook. Shopify shipped native product bundles after bundle apps proved the demand. Native subscriptions squeezed the pricing power of subscription apps.

AI does not change this pattern. It accelerates it. What once took years now takes months.

Where Apps Can Still Win

So what will a platform never bother to build? That is where apps live. Three safe zones stand out:

  • Niche verticals. Think compliance tools for regulated products like CBD, freight shipping for heavy furniture, or B2B wholesale pricing tiers. These markets are too small or too messy for platforms to chase.
  • Opinionated workflows. A returns app built specifically around fashion try-on-and-return behavior beats a generic returns feature every time.
  • Cross-platform tools. Inventory sync across Shopify, Amazon, eBay, and TikTok Shop. No single platform will ever build a tool that helps you sell everywhere else.

If your app sits in one of these zones, AI is your tailwind, not your executioner.

The Bigger Shift: AI Agents That Shop for Consumers

Platforms absorbing apps is one threat. Big Tech absorbing the shopping journey is a bigger one.

Apple has an $80 billion reason to protect the app model. Its App Store cut depends on apps existing. But Siri plus Apple Pay could still change everything. So could ChatGPT's shopping features, Google's Gemini recommendations, and Perplexity's built-in checkout.

These agents do not browse. They buy.

Who Owns the Customer Now?

Here is the scenario that should worry every DTC brand. A shopper asks ChatGPT for the best running shoes under $150. The agent recommends a product and completes the purchase.

The merchant never gets the email address. No remarketing. No loyalty program. No lifetime value.

The customer relationship now belongs to the AI company, not the store. That is a fundamental power shift in ecommerce.

Regulators are watching, though. The EU's Digital Markets Act already forced Apple to allow third-party app stores. Google has lost antitrust battles over search defaults. Big Tech will not swallow commerce quietly.

What This Means for Your Revenue

Let's get practical. AI in ecommerce hits two groups directly: merchants and app developers.

For Merchants: Your Funnel Is Under Attack

Agent-driven shopping guts traditional marketing tactics:

  • Your upsell popup converts at 5 percent. An agent buying programmatically never sees it.
  • Abandoned-cart emails recover lost sales. Agents do not abandon carts.
  • Your beautiful product page builds brand trust. An agent reads the specs and moves on.

Conversion may go up. Brand power may go down.

From SEO to AEO

Discovery is flipping too. Search engine optimization is becoming agent engine optimization, or AEO.

Smart stores are already optimizing structured data, reviews, and clear product specs so AI assistants recommend them. Getting recommended by ChatGPT is the new page one of Google. Resources like the MonsterInsights SEO checklist still matter, but the audience now includes machines.

For App Developers: Task Apps Die, Data Apps Survive

Not all apps face equal risk. The dividing line is simple.

Task apps are in danger. "Generate alt text" is a one-prompt job. Platform AI kills it for free.

Workflow and data apps survive. A loyalty app holding three years of customer points history cannot be replicated by a chatbot. AI can copy features. It cannot copy your data.

Audit your own product honestly. Which features could the platform's AI ship next quarter? What percentage of your revenue do they represent? That number is your risk exposure.

What Should You Build Today?

Enough doom. Here is the action plan for sellers and developers who want to thrive in the age of AI in ecommerce.

1. Build for the Novice Majority

Serve the merchant who wants one-click presets, not a settings page with 40 toggles. The techie early adopters are loud, but the novice majority pays the bills.

2. Own a Workflow or Own Data

Review apps survive because they hold the reviews. Description generators die because they hold nothing. Ask yourself what your product owns that cannot be prompted away.

3. Make Your App Agent-Ready

Expose your app's functions through clean APIs. When AI agents orchestrate store tasks, they should call your app instead of replacing it. Being useful to the agent is the new distribution channel.

4. Go Cross-Platform

An analytics app spanning Shopify, WooCommerce, and Amazon survives any single platform's AI roadmap. Never let one company's product decisions decide your fate.

The Bottom Line

AI in ecommerce will not kill apps. It will kill lazy apps.

The winners will wrap AI in interfaces novices love. They will own data no chatbot can replicate. They will serve niches platforms ignore. And they will make themselves indispensable to the very agents that threaten them.

The one-app-to-rule-them-all future makes a great headline. The reality is messier, slower, and full of opportunity for anyone paying attention.

Ready to future-proof your store or your app? Start this week: audit one feature of your business against the question, "Could a platform AI do this for free?" Then double down on everything that answers no. Your future self will thank you.

Guest Author: Garry Egan is the founder of InterLinks, a Shopify app that automates site-wide keyword and text linking. A technology engineer whose career spans HBO, Disney Tokyo, and Fortune 100 companies, he helps sellers increase store conversions through a range of technologies. Connect at linkedin.com/in/garryegan.

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