The way you search on Instagram isn’t the way you search on Amazon.
On Instagram, you might type something like “Sabrina Carpenter-inspired makeup.”
On Amazon? Probably not. There, you’d look for “glass skin serum” or “dewy finish highlighter.”
And if you were talking to ChatGPT, you’d likely write a whole story: “What’s the best, affordable makeup that gives the same glowy, soft glam look as Sabrina Carpenter for an evening event in the summer?”
Each of those queries describes the same goal, but in a completely different language. That’s what makes discovery so fascinating right now: every platform speaks its own dialect of intent.
The Language Gap in Retail
In retail, that gap between how merchants describe products and how consumers describe them has always existed. A brand might call something “midnight French terry athleisure” while a shopper simply calls it a “navy hoodie.”
Same product. Different languages. And when the words don’t match, the product simply doesn’t show up.
That’s the challenge of modern commerce. As people search more naturally, typing in full sentences, context, even emotions, product content has to keep up. Every title, attribute, and description needs to reflect how real people talk about what they’re looking for, whether that search happens on Google, Amazon, Meta, or an AI assistant.
Relevance Is the New Ranking
AI is changing what it means to be found. Large language models don’t just match keywords, they interpret meaning, context, and relationships between words.
As I said recently in my conversation with Richard Larsson on AW360 Live at Advertising Week New York, “Every discovery is AI discovery now.”
In this new reality, relevance is everything. If your product content isn’t clear, current, or connected to consumer language, you’re invisible.
Balancing Now and Next
Marketers today are facing an impossible equation: deliver short-term results while preparing for an uncertain future.
I like to think of it the same way I think about health; you can’t choose between eating well or exercising. You have to do both.
In the short term, that means optimizing what you already control: paid search, product feeds, and creative assets that can make an impact this quarter. In the long term, it means getting ready for agentic commerce, a world where AI assistants will do more of the searching, comparing, and buying for us.
Both matter. Both build adaptability.
Websites Aren’t Going Anywhere
There’s a lot of speculation about whether AI search will replace websites. I don’t think so.
Websites will just have to do double duty, serving both humans and AI agents. They’ll become a brand’s structured, reliable source of truth; the place where people are inspired and where AI systems pull accurate product information.
Discovery, Done Right
All of this change can feel overwhelming, but I see it as a huge opportunity. AI is not removing the human element from retail, it’s helping us understand people better. When we match the way products are described with the way people actually talk, we make discovery easier, more intuitive, and more personal.
Because in the end, one truth will always hold: You have to be found to be sold.
🎧 Listen to my full conversation with Richard Larsson on AW360 Live.
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Every platform speaks its own language of intent.
On Instagram, it’s “Sabrina Carpenter-inspired makeup.”
On Amazon, it’s “glass skin serum.”
On ChatGPT, it might be “affordable products for a glowy, soft glam look.”
Same shopper. Same goal. Completely different language.
As people search more naturally, using full sentences, context, even emotions, product content has to keep up. Every title, attribute, and description needs to reflect how real people talk about what they’re looking for, whether that search happens on Google, Amazon, Meta, or an AI assistant.
Relevance matters more than ever. Because if your product doesn’t show up in the way people actually search, it simply won’t sell.
At Advertising Week New York, I joined Richard Larsson on AW360 Live to talk about the new language of discovery: how people search, how products are found, and what brands can do to stay relevant. It left me thinking a lot about what “being found” really means in 2025. A few thoughts here: Linked here