E-commerce marketing is entering a new phase in which the point of influence may shift from advertisements and search results to AI shopping assistants, deal platforms and savings ecosystems. New research from Northwestern University's Retail Analytics Council and Minty indicates that senior commerce marketers are preparing to redirect a significant share of incremental marketing investment toward AI commerce tools and cashback platforms as shoppers increasingly use technology to compare prices, discover alternatives and evaluate total value.

E-commerce marketers are beginning to treat AI shopping assistants and savings platforms as part of the commerce infrastructure rather than simply another set of promotional channels.

The finding comes from the first wave of the Proactive Commerce Leadership Index, a survey of 150 senior commerce decision-makers conducted by Northwestern University's Retail Analytics Council in August 2026. According to the research, marketers plan to direct 63 cents of every new marketing dollar toward AI commerce tools and cashback and savings applications rather than traditional digital advertising. Ninety-eight percent of respondents represented companies generating more than $100 million in annual revenue.

The shift reflects a change in how consumers discover and evaluate products. Rather than encountering a brand through an advertisement and subsequently beginning their research, shoppers can increasingly start with an AI assistant that compares products, identifies promotions, checks prices and surfaces alternatives.

EMARKETER's September 2026 Future of Digital research similarly describes AI as reshaping the shopping journey, with brands increasingly having to consider how they appear within large language models and how they engage consumers arriving through AI-driven discovery.

The Northwestern-Minty research puts numbers around that transition. Seventy-nine percent of surveyed commerce leaders expect their primary customer to be assisted by AI in 2027. Two-thirds expect AI to become their primary shopping gateway for reaching consumers, compared with 18% who identify traditional search and 13% who identify social as their primary route.

Savings ecosystems are also gaining attention. Eighty-one percent of respondents describe cashback and savings tools as the most helpful form of marketing for shoppers making purchase decisions. Among marketers responding to the shift toward AI and proactive commerce, 61% say they are increasing or reallocating investment toward cashback and savings applications.

That does not necessarily mean conventional advertising disappears. Instead, the role of advertising can change as brands seek to influence consumers earlier in an AI-mediated purchase process.

The study defines proactive commerce as delivering total-value messaging to shoppers and their AI agents before traditional behavioral triggers, such as a search, click or abandoned cart. Thirty-eight percent of respondents say they are already operating proactive commerce programs, while another 36% are moving toward the model. Half say they are preparing to market to AI agents.

Budget allocation provides another indication of the shift. Cashback and savings platforms currently account for 18% of performance-marketing budgets among respondents, with that share expected to reach 30% in 2027. Meanwhile, the proportion of leaders describing these channels as "core or strategic" is expected to rise from 16% today to 41% in 2027.

The development is also reflected in the technology being built around AI shopping. Minty's current platform, for example, provides AI agents with access to merchant offers, coupon codes and cashback information through an MCP interface, illustrating how savings data can become directly accessible inside agentic shopping workflows.

This creates a different optimization problem for e-commerce marketers. Traditional performance marketing has largely focused on impressions, clicks, conversions and retargeting. AI-mediated commerce introduces another layer: whether a brand's product, price, promotion and value proposition can be surfaced and evaluated by an AI agent at the moment a consumer is making a decision.

That could increase the importance of structured product information, real-time offers, pricing data, promotions and machine-readable commerce infrastructure.

At the same time, the survey represents the expectations of senior commerce decision-makers rather than observed consumer behavior. Its 150-person sample is heavily weighted toward large enterprises, so the projected 2027 budget changes should be interpreted as an indicator of enterprise marketing sentiment rather than a forecast for the entire e-commerce market.

For marketers, the central development is therefore not simply a shift from ads to cashback. It is the emergence of an AI-mediated distribution layer where product discovery, comparison, incentives and purchase decisions increasingly happen before a shopper reaches a conventional advertising destination.

Market Landscape

AI is already changing the mechanics of digital commerce. EMARKETER's 2026 research identifies AI search and discovery as a major force affecting digital marketing, while its September Future of Digital analysis describes brands adapting to consumers arriving through AI-driven searches and large language models.

The development of agent-accessible commerce infrastructure adds another dimension. Minty's MCP offering allows AI agents to retrieve live merchant offers and cashback information, demonstrating how promotional data can become part of an AI agent's shopping workflow rather than remaining confined to a website or browser extension.

For retailers and brands, this expands the definition of commerce visibility. Product feeds, pricing, promotions, reviews, availability and value propositions may increasingly need to be accessible to systems that make or influence shopping recommendations.

Strategic Outlook

The emerging model could move performance marketing from behavioral response toward proactive value delivery.

Instead of waiting for consumers to search, visit a product page or abandon a cart, brands can increasingly use AI commerce infrastructure to surface relevant offers during the decision process.

That creates opportunities but also measurement challenges. If an AI assistant introduces a shopper to a product, a cashback platform supplies an incentive and the final transaction occurs on a retailer's site, attribution can become more fragmented.

Marketing organizations will therefore need to evaluate AI commerce channels alongside search, retail media, social, affiliates and traditional advertising rather than treating them as isolated investments.

The 2027 expectations in the Northwestern-Minty research suggest that enterprise marketers are already preparing for that broader distribution environment. Whether those allocations materialize at the projected scale will depend on consumer adoption, incremental economics, measurement standards and how effectively AI agents translate product and offer information into transactions.

Top Insights

• AI commerce is becoming a budget priority, with surveyed marketers planning to allocate 63 cents of each new marketing dollar toward AI and savings ecosystems.
• AI could become a major shopping gateway, as two-thirds of surveyed commerce leaders expect it to become their primary consumer-reach channel in 2027.
• Cashback is moving toward infrastructure, with respondents expecting performance-marketing allocation to rise from 18% currently to 30% in 2027.
• Proactive commerce is emerging, with 38% already running programs and another 36% moving toward delivering value messages before conventional marketing triggers.
• AI agents create a new optimization layer, requiring brands to make product, pricing and promotional information accessible to machine-mediated shopping experiences.

Get in touch with our MarTech Experts.