Adapting to AI orchestration: what retailers need to know

We all know AI is reshaping customer experiences. The next leap? Just one prompt will manage your life – from shopping to travel. But is your brand ready?

Feb 25, 2025

AI has been making waves for a while. From creating content to streamlining business operations, it’s everywhere. But here’s the thing – this is just the beginning. Most AI tools are still only handling single tasks, pulling together reviews on an e-commerce site or automatically generating product descriptions. And personal AI assistants haven’t caught up with what large language models (LLMs) can do. At the same time, retailers are scrambling to lay the groundwork for what’s coming next.

And what is that? We believe the next big shift will be AI orchestration – and it’s going to shake up brand competition in a big way. So, how can brands get ready?

What is orchestration?

Orchestration in AI refers to not just handling one task but coordinating and managing multiple processes at once. We’ll see a shift beyond isolated use cases to more holistic AI for both consumers and the enterprise. For enterprise it will handle everything from planning an event to optimizing pricing strategies across an entire portfolio. For consumers, selecting and purchasing their entire wardrobe or booking  end-to-end holidays across flights, hotels, and restaurants. All from a single prompt. 

Smart assistants and consumer facing orchestration

Personal AI assistants (PAIs) are set to become a common presence in our lives. Connected to AI orchestrators, these assistants will create new ways to engage with products, moving from individual retailer transactions to a seamless browsing and buying experience across the market as AI agents take over the purchasing journey.

Interactions for commoditized goods will shift from person-to-person to agent-to-agent, enabling AIs to search for and checkout across retailers. These assistants will learn to understand each consumer's unique context, helping them find the perfect product and becoming more human-like as they take on more senses and emotions.

Techniques like ‘chain-of-thought’ and ‘tree-of-thought’ reasoning allow AI to think more deeply, making smarter decisions by evaluating multiple possibilities. 

In this new world, the way customers search and browse will completely transform. The engagement points of today will become the friction points of tomorrow as consumers move away from traditional interfaces that slow down actions like searching and purchasing. Instead, they’ll rely on their AI assistants, where every action can be accomplished with just one prompt.

“Whoever wins the personal agent, that’s the big thing, because you will never go to a search site again, you will never go to a productivity site, you’ll never go to Amazon again.”

- Bill Gates

Enterprise facing orchestration

AI is swiftly revolutionizing the business landscape, enhancing everything from front to back-end operations. With cutting-edge algorithms and insightful data analysis, AI is not just improving user experiences, it's redefining them. Streamlining customer-facing interactions, and driving efficiency across the entire operational spectrum.

Generative AI is producing text and images for web pages without a single line of human copy. Analyzing vast amounts of information to derive insights and automate workflows, and exploring new ideas with synthetic personas.

AI assistants are already helping store staff become more effective, providing them with real-time information and tools at their fingertips. And it won’t be long before consumer-facing digital assistants will handle their repetitive shop floor tasks, allowing them to focus on delivering exceptional customer experiences.

Software development is also being revolutionized, with AI tools cutting down development time. From AI pair programmers to no-code platforms, teams can quickly create AI-driven applications.

And if we think AI is enhancing operations now, at their most advanced, enterprise assistants will optimize the entire value chain. AI orchestrators will seamlessly connect capabilities and functions to enhance both front-end and back-end processes, with just one command.

New channels can be established in moments by automatically assembling capabilities, allowing a single stakeholder to request and launch a new channel without needing a developer. E-commerce executives will be able to shift thousands of units with a simple command to 'sell more units' of a specific product, as enterprise orchestration enables automated actions to optimize pricing, determine promotions, identify target audiences, and trigger marketing automation.

Preparing for the future with new capabilities and ways of working

As PAIs  redefine consumer engagement, brands must fight for relevance to stay top of mind. To ensure consumers prompt them with their specific brand names rather than generic options. 

Retailers need to build brand relevance and infrastructure that thrives in a world where PAIs are the norm. Every touchpoint becomes vital for delivering the right message at the right time, using all the sources of available data.

IT teams should prepare for deeper integrations with these assistants. In a future where agents interact directly, brands must ensure their capabilities – like product catalogs, promotions, and loyalty programs – are easily accessible. Content should be optimized for indexing and regularly updated as AI agents evolve.

To support this new landscape, brands will need to modernize their entire ecosystem. This means adopting scalable, headless, and API-first architectures; ensuring real-time integrations; developing an enterprise data strategy with consistent governance and common data models; and creating environments that support data exploration and analytics. All these steps will unlock the true potential of AI orchestration for customers and businesses alike.