Platforms from Nykaa to Pinterest, Amazon and Truecaller are deploying AI-powered tools that move consumers from product discovery to purchase through conversational interfaces
Eight out of ten WhatsApp orders placed during India’s festive season last year came from new customers, indicating that messaging platforms are increasingly being used for customer acquisition alongside retention, according to a GoKwik report. The report found that automated customer journeys, including abandoned-cart reminders, order updates, loyalty messages and login prompts, generated an average click-through rate of 11.12 per cent during the year.
Broadcast campaigns recorded an average click-through rate of 2.6 per cent, rising to 3.04 per cent during the October-December festive quarter. Open rates for automated journeys reached as high as 73.9 per cent. Whereas Brands using WhatsApp marketing through GoKwik’s Kwik Engage platform recorded 2.25 times higher median gross merchandise value (GMV) growth than brands that did not use the platform within the GoKwik network.
“The brands seeing outsized growth on WhatsApp aren’t sending more messages. They are letting AI decide which message to send, to whom, and when. That shift from broadcast to AI-driven contextual commerce is what’s creating a structural performance gap,” said GoKwik Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Chirag Taneja.
In electronics, top-quartile brands on the network achieved WhatsApp conversion rates of nearly 1.5 per cent against a network average of 0.4 per cent — a 3.8 times gap driven almost entirely by automation depth. Bot-led customer support resolution rates rose from 67.1 per cent to 73.4 per cent over the year, covering queries on order tracking, returns, and frequently asked questions.
Commerce Through Conversation
Retailers, marketplaces and technology companies expand the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools across the consumer purchase journey. Product discovery, comparison, recommendation and customer support are increasingly being delivered through conversational interfaces, allowing consumers to interact with platforms using natural-language queries rather than conventional search and navigation tools.
Salesforce said in December 2025 that AI and AI agents influenced USD 67 billion in sales during Cyber Week, accounting for 20 per cent of all orders during the shopping period. The company also reported that retailers using proprietary AI shopping agents recorded sales growth 32 per cent faster than retailers that had not introduced similar capabilities into their ecommerce operations.
Adobe Analytics reported that traffic from AI-powered chat services and browsers increased 805 per cent year-on-year during the Black Friday shopping period in 2025. According to the company, consumers arriving through AI interfaces were 38 per cent more likely to complete a purchase than users arriving through conventional digital channels, highlighting the growing role of conversational tools in online shopping.
The wider ecosystem supporting conversational commerce has also expanded over the past 18 months. Companies including OpenAI, Stripe, Salesforce, Mastercard, Visa, PayPal and Google have introduced tools, integrations and payment frameworks designed to support AI-assisted product discovery and transactions across merchant platforms.
Retailers Expand AI Efforts
Nykaa became the latest Indian retailer to deepen its focus on conversational commerce after entering into a multi-year partnership with OpenAI. Under the arrangement, Nykaa Beauty and Nykaa Fashion have been listed as connected applications on ChatGPT, allowing users to receive personalised product recommendations through conversations before being directed to Nykaa’s own digital platforms to complete purchases.
“Search-and-scroll shopping is a transitional technology. The future is conversational, agentic, and deeply personal and that future is being built right now on both sides of this partnership,” said Rajesh Uppalapati, Chief Product and Technology Officer, Nykaa.
The partnership is built on OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol, a framework designed to connect merchant catalogues with AI-powered interfaces while allowing transactions to remain on merchant-owned websites and applications. The model enables consumers to discover and evaluate products through conversational interactions before completing purchases through the retailer’s own channels.
Amazon has adopted a similar approach through Rufus, its generative AI shopping assistant. Available in India since 2025, Rufus allows consumers to search for products, compare alternatives and seek recommendations using natural-language queries. The assistant draws on Amazon’s product catalogue, customer reviews and other information available within the company’s ecosystem.
Outside traditional marketplaces, other platforms are also introducing conversational shopping features. Pinterest launched Pinterest Assistant in October 2025, enabling users to search for products through combinations of text, voice and image inputs. Earlier this month, the company launched Ask Pinterest, an experimental standalone application designed to test conversational product-discovery experiences.
“More than a typical chatbot, Pinterest Assistant enables users to chat, collaborate, discover and shop all in one place by delivering creative, insightful and tailored visual search results,” the company said when introducing the feature.
Beyond Retail Platforms
In India, social-commerce and value-commerce platforms are also expanding AI-enabled shopping tools. Meesho introduced Vaani in March 2026, a voice-based conversational shopping assistant aimed at consumers in tier 2 and 3 markets. The platform allows users to search for products, refine selections and complete purchases through voice interactions, reducing reliance on text-based navigation.
Flipkart has expanded its AI capabilities through the acquisition of startup Minivet AI, citing conversational and visual commerce among its focus areas. The company’s efforts reflect a broader trend among ecommerce platforms to improve product discovery and recommendation capabilities through AI-powered systems.
AI tools are also being deployed outside conventional shopping environments. On 17 June 2026, Truecaller Ads introduced Call-to-Cart, a product that uses the company’s adVantage platform to surface personalised product recommendations before and after phone calls. The offering targets advertisers across sectors including fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), pharmaceuticals, fintech, mobility and direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands.
“Millions of purchase decisions begin outside shopping environments. Communication moments represent an effective commerce surface,” said Hemant Arora, Vice-President and Global Head, Truecaller Ads.
According to the company, its advertising platform serves more than 5 billion impressions daily across a global user base exceeding 500 million active users. The launch reflects growing interest in using AI to connect consumer intent signals with product recommendations across a wider range of digital touchpoints.
Growing Adoption
GoKwik’s report also highlighted performance differences across categories. In electronics, top-quartile brands achieved WhatsApp conversion rates of nearly 1.5 per cent compared with a network average of 0.4 per cent. The report further noted that bot-led customer-support resolution rates increased from 67.1 per cent to 73.4 per cent during the year, covering queries related to order tracking, returns and frequently asked questions.
Market researchers expect continued growth in technologies that support conversational commerce. Grand View Research valued the global AI chatbot market at USD 7.76 billion in 2024 and projects it will reach USD 27.29 billion by 2030. In India, the market generated USD 316.5 million in revenue in 2024 and is forecast to reach USD 1.26 billion by 2030.
Developments across WhatsApp commerce, AI shopping assistants, conversational search tools and transaction-enabled customer-engagement platforms indicate that retailers and technology companies are increasingly integrating AI into the consumer purchase journey. Product discovery, recommendation, customer support and transaction assistance are emerging as some of the earliest large-scale commercial applications of the technology.
