AI unlocks new consumer potential

China's retailers and exporters, in an era marked by the explosive rise of artificial intelligence's restructuring of consumer habits worldwide, need to embrace AI-powered mechanics to stay ahead of the curve and influence their presence and representation when going global, executives said.

"Consumers are more complex than ever, and the way they shop has changed. And it's important that marketing tactics change to accommodate the different user behaviors," Diarmuid Gill, chief technology officer of commerce media company Criteo, told China Daily.

According to a report on the changing consumer behaviors released by Omnicom Media Group in October, 65 percent of consumers now expect to get their ideal answers from AI overviews.

Consumers are most likely to turn to AI in the early phases of the shopping experience to get familiar with products, discover options, or to simply look for inspiration — these being the main phases of the purchase journey as noted in the report.

"We clearly observe this trend through monitoring clickstream, sessions and conversations on our platform," Gill said, noting the application of AI is currently concentrated in product discovery and price comparison stages, with the final consumer decision-making phase remaining underdeveloped.

As AI has become an important partner in the consumer shopping journey, brands need to promptly deploy AI agent-driven marketing strategies to capitalize on this critical growth opportunity, Gill added.

In July, the State Council, China's Cabinet, issued a set of guidelines on advancing the "AI Plus" initiative, explicitly encouraging the widespread adoption of AI agents in sectors such as commerce.

Looking ahead, Criteo is expected to launch its agentic AI solutions in China in the next few months. Meanwhile, Criteo is open to partner with Chinese large language model service providers for win-win outcomes.

China is Criteo's third-largest market in the Asia-Pacific region and holds critical importance for our global strategy, said Szi-Wei Lo, executive managing director of Criteo APAC.

"We deeply understand both the opportunities and challenges Chinese enterprises face in their overseas expansion, and clearly recognize how the retail and e-commerce ecosystem is evolving at an unprecedented pace," Lo said.

China's AI user base has achieved leapfrog growth. As of June, the user scale reached 515 million, with a penetration rate of 36.5 percent, data from the China Internet Network Information Center showed in October.

"If the last decade was defined by building the information superhighway, the next will be defined by deploying intelligent agents to operate on it," said Zhong Xinlong, a researcher at the China Center for Information Industry Development.