EC & AI Commerce News Digest (April 8, 2026)

Top Stories

Mondelez Overhauls $3.5B Digital Commerce Strategy for AI Search Era

Mondelez overhauls its $3.5 billion digital commerce strategy in era of AI search

Mondelez is aggressively shifting its digital commerce strategy to optimize for AI, ensuring brands like Oreo dominate agentic search.

digiday.com

Global CPG giant Mondelez has announced a complete overhaul of its $3.5 billion digital commerce business to optimize for AI agents and AI search. The catalyst: retail partners projecting that 30% of site traffic will come from AI agents by 2028.

The company first unblocked AI bot crawlers — while blocked, Oreo was cited in only 10% of chatbot cookie recommendations. After unblocking and implementing a three-pillar rebuild (structured data, sitemap optimization, AI-native content scaling), Oreo's recommendation rate jumped to 70% for specific queries. VP Andrew Lederman predicts 20-30% of Mondelez product purchases will happen via agents within one to two years.

Full article: Mondelez Overhauls $3.5B Digital Commerce for AI Search

Google Ads Reveals Product Data Strategy for Agentic Commerce

Exclusive Q&A: How Google Ads Maintains the Key Product Data Needed to Optimize Agentic Commerce

By making search more natural and conversational, AI is creating myriad opportunities for retailers to deepen their understanding of shopper intent.

www.retailtouchpoints.com

Retail TouchPoints published an exclusive interview with the Google Ads team, revealing how product data should be managed and optimized for the agentic commerce era. As AI makes search more natural and conversational, retailers gain new opportunities to understand shopper intent more deeply.

Structured data, product feed quality, and real-time inventory accuracy are the keys that determine AI agent recommendation precision. Unlike traditional SEO, organizing product information in a format that AI can "read" will define future e-commerce competitiveness.

Full article: Google Ads Reveals Product Data Strategy for Agentic Commerce

Agentic Commerce

Agentic Commerce Will Make Transaction Data 'Noisy' — Sallie's Executive Warns

Sallie's Marco Steinsieck: Agentic Commerce will Make Transaction Data 'Noisy'

Agent-driven transactions that optimize purchases based on price and other factors will disrupt the closed-loop foundation that…

www.beet.tv

Marco Steinsieck of retail media analytics firm Sallie's warns that agentic commerce will disrupt the "closed-loop" foundation of transaction data. As AI agents optimize purchases based on price and other factors, they create unpredictable buying patterns that undermine retail media measurement and attribution.

The "purchase data-driven ad optimization" cycle that advertisers and retailers have built over years becomes less reliable as agent-mediated transactions increase. This structural challenge to data-driven marketing fundamentals is drawing industry attention.

Full article: Agentic Commerce Will Make Transaction Data 'Noisy'

Bazaarvoice Launches AI Review Discovery API

Bazaarvoice launches API to boost AI review discovery

Bazaarvoice unveils patent-pending API to help brands and retailers surface verified reviews in AI-led shopping and search results.

ecommercenews.com.au

UGC platform leader Bazaarvoice has unveiled a patent-pending API enabling AI agents and AI search engines to discover and reference product reviews. The API provides infrastructure for brands and retailers to surface verified reviews in AI-driven shopping results.

When AI agents make purchasing decisions, authentic consumer reviews are among the most critical inputs. This API creates a pipeline for delivering structured review data directly to AI, building a foundation for trustworthy product evaluations in agentic commerce.

Full article: Bazaarvoice Launches AI Review Discovery API

Payments & Fintech

Razorpay Partners OpenAI — Embedding Payments Directly into AI-Generated Apps

Razorpay partners OpenAI to enable payments in Codex-built apps

Razorpay has partnered with OpenAI to help developers add payment feature directly into applications created using AI tools.

www.electronicpaymentsinternational.com

Indian payments giant Razorpay has partnered with OpenAI to embed payment capabilities directly into applications built with tools like Codex. Developers can now automatically integrate payment processing when generating apps with AI tools.

AI writing code and AI processing payments — this progression shows the agentic commerce "infrastructure layer" deepening further. With AI payments naturally embedded in developer workflows, the development speed of commerce-enabled applications is expected to accelerate.

AI Commerce Tools / Funding

Two Boxes Raises $3.2M for AI Returns Platform

Two Boxes raises $3.2M to scale AI returns platform

Two Boxes has raised $3.2 million to help scale its AI-powered returns platform as retailers grapple with rising fraud and costly reverse logistics.

www.freightwaves.com

Two Boxes, an AI-powered returns management platform, has raised $3.2 million in seed funding. The platform addresses rising return fraud and costly reverse logistics that retailers increasingly struggle with, using AI for automated decision-making across data analysis, pattern detection, and fraud identification.

Zellor Raises €850,000 for AI Shopping Assistant

Dublin start-up Zellor bags €850,000 for AI shopping assistant

Dublin-based e-commerce technology company Zellor has raised €850,000 in its very first external funding round.

www.siliconrepublic.com

Dublin-based AI commerce startup Zellor has secured €850,000 in its first external funding round. The company develops a video-based AI shopping assistant that enables consumers to purchase directly from video content.

nFuse Raises $2M for B2B Messaging Commerce

nFuse raises $2M as messaging overtakes B2B ordering apps

Former Coca-Cola operators build a messaging-first platform, achieving 70% adoption and cutting order costs by up to 20x.

tech.eu

nFuse, founded by former Coca-Cola executives, has raised $2 million for its messaging-first B2B ordering platform. Replacing traditional ordering apps, the platform completes orders through messaging apps like WhatsApp, achieving 70% adoption rates and up to 20x order cost reduction. A clear signal that "conversational commerce" is accelerating in B2B as well.

Global E-Commerce

India E-Commerce to Hit $250B by 2030 — Quick Commerce Grows to $50B Powerhouse

Quick commerce to become $50 billion powerhouse by 2030: Google and Deloitte report

The report also stated that Live Commerce is set to become an $8 billion sector, powered by Gen Z adoption.

www.deccanherald.com

A joint Google-Deloitte report projects India's e-commerce market will reach $250 billion by 2030. The quick commerce (instant delivery) segment alone is forecast to become a $50 billion market. Gen Z drives 45% of online spending, and live commerce is expected to grow into an $8 billion sector.

Coupang Fully Recovers from Data Breach — Reaffirms South Korean E-Commerce Dominance

Coupang reclaims e-commerce dominance in South Korea as Chinese rivals gain ground

Coupang has effectively shaken off the fallout from a massive data breach that exposed personal information of about 33.7 million users.

www.ajupress.com

South Korea's largest online retailer Coupang has restored its monthly active users and estimated transaction volumes to pre-breach levels as of March, effectively recovering from a data breach that exposed 33.7 million users' personal information. However, Chinese platforms AliExpress and Temu continue to gain market share.

AI to Reshape £3.7B of UK Marketing and E-Commerce Spending by 2030

AI To Reshape £3.7bn Of UK Marketing And E-Commerce Expenditure By 2030

AI is expected to claim a growing share of UK retail expenditure by the end of this decade, particularly in marketing and e-commerce.

www.esmmagazine.com

AI is projected to reshape £3.7 billion of UK marketing and e-commerce spending by 2030, according to ESM Magazine. Marketing automation, personalization, and inventory optimization are the areas expected to see the greatest transformation.

Logistics & Fulfillment

Amazon Cuts USPS Deliveries by 20% in New Deal — New Logistics Surcharge for 3P Sellers Too

Amazon, USPS agree on new terms for package deliveries

Amazon and USPS reach a tentative deal, allowing USPS to maintain 80 percent of Amazon deliveries.

thehill.com

Amazon and USPS have agreed to new delivery terms, with Amazon's delivery volume reduced by approximately 20% while USPS retains about 80% of Amazon deliveries. Amazon continues expanding its own delivery network while maintaining its last-mile dependence on USPS.

Meanwhile, Amazon has also announced an additional logistics surcharge for European selling partners due to Middle East-related disruptions. Combined with the 3.5% fuel surcharge introduced in the US in March, third-party seller costs are increasing from multiple directions.

Summary

Today's core theme is clear: brands and advertising platforms are beginning their concrete response to agentic commerce. Mondelez unblocked bot crawlers and rebuilt structured data. Google Ads spoke about product data optimization. Bazaarvoice built a review data pipeline for AI agents. Last week's discussions centered on infrastructure and payments; this week, the conversation has shifted to the brand and retail execution layer. Watch for whether other CPG and retail brands announce similar adaptations in the coming days.