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Here are the recommended reads for this week and why they matter:
This week’s stories explore the rapidly evolving world of AI-powered shopping. Pinterest’s CEO shares why fully autonomous AI agents are still a long way off, while the company works to improve personalization and tackle low-quality, AI-generated content. At the same time, industry giants like Amazon, Google, Walmart, and Shopify are entering a new phase of the “AI commerce wars,” racing to build shopping agents and protect their customer relationships from competitors.
1- Pinterest CEO says agentic shopping is still a long way out
Sarah Perez, TechCrunch, 8/8/2025
On its Q2 earnings call, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready said fully autonomous AI shopping remains far off, as users aren’t yet ready to let agents make purchases for them. Instead, he positioned Pinterest as an AI-powered shopping assistant, using personalized recommendations, visual search, and multimodal AI to inspire purchases.
The company is also addressing rising concerns over AI-generated, low-quality content and flawed moderation systems, which have led to mass account bans and user frustration. In response, Pinterest has introduced labels for AI-created images and new filters that allow users to hide generative AI content from their feeds.
2 – The AI Commerce Wars Have Begun
Jason Goldberg, Forbes, 8/8/2025
AI “commerce wars” are heating up as Amazon, Google, Walmart and others race to build agentic shopping assistants that can complete purchases across sites while blocking rivals from accessing their data. Amazon has barred competitors’ bots like Google’s Mariner and ChatGPT from scraping its site while developing its own agent, Rufus.
Shopify, Walmart, OpenAI, Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Perplexity are pursuing similar strategies, balancing defense with building their own closed ecosystems. The shift could disrupt retail media, affiliate marketing and attribution models as transactions happen inside walled gardens controlled by AI agents.
In Summary
AI is transforming the shopping journey from inspiration to transaction, but the road to fully agentic commerce is far from complete. While some companies are focused on refining user trust and content quality, others are building closed ecosystems to control the future of AI-driven retail. The winners will be those who combine innovative technology with strong customer relationships and responsible AI practices.
Check back next week for another roundup of Media That Matters.
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