The ecommerce funnel is getting squished. What happens to product discovery?

As AI brings product discovery, research, and comparison closer together, product content plays a bigger role in helping shoppers decide what to buy.

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Think about the last time you researched a product online. Maybe you knew roughly what you wanted, or maybe you had a problem to solve and weren't quite sure which product would do the trick.

AI assistants have become a familiar way to navigate that process, helping shoppers explore options, compare products, and narrow down their choices through conversation.

What's interesting isn't simply that people are using AI to discover products. It's that they can now discover, research, compare, and decide what to buy, all within a single AI conversation.

That's what we mean when we say the ecommerce funnel is getting "squished."

Dan Flood and I joined Scotty O on the Always Off Brand podcast, recorded live at eTail Boston, to talk about AI-powered commerce, product discovery, and the growing role of product content in connecting brands with shoppers.

Listen to the conversation:

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From searching for products to describing what you need

Imagine you're looking for a new shampoo. You have fine, color-treated hair, your scalp tends to get oily, and you're looking for something that adds volume without drying out your ends.

A traditional search for "shampoo for fine hair"might give you dozens of options to sort through.

With an AI assistant, you can describe your specific needs, explore recommendations, ask follow-up questions, and compare products in the same conversation.

The distinction isn't just about where the search happens.It's about how much context shoppers can bring into the discovery process.

Instead of relying on a handful of keywords, shoppers can explain what they're trying to accomplish, what hasn't worked before, and which details matter most.

That creates new opportunities for shoppers to discover products that meet their specific needs, even when they don't know which brand or product category to look for.

Product content has always mattered. Now it influences which products AI puts in front of shoppers.

We also got into a question worth exploring: Does anyone actually read product descriptions?

Product content has always played an important role in the relationship between brands and shoppers. In many ways, it's a promise. It tells someone what they're buying, what makes it special, and what they can expect when it arrives.

That promise matters. Accurate, compelling product content helps shoppers make confident decisions and builds the trust that keeps them coming back.

What's evolving is how and where that information gets used.

The same details that help someone make a purchase on a product detail page can also help AI systems understand a product and connect it to a shopper's specific needs.

A shampoo formulated for fine, color-treated hair that adds volume without stripping moisture, for example, has several attributes that could make it relevant to a highly specific conversational query.

It's one of the reasons we've been spending so much time thinking about shopper intent at Talkoot. Our Intent Agent researches how and why shoppers discover products, exploring the activities, occasions, lifestyles, and specific needs that shape their decisions.

The result is a richer understanding of the questions and motivations surrounding a product, with opportunities to apply those insights across PDPs, FAQs, and other content.

Creating one product description is easy. Creating thousands is another story.

Understanding shopper intent is one part of the equation.Turning that understanding into relevant content across an entire product catalog is where the real challenge begins.

Anyone can open an AI tool and generate a product description in seconds. But what happens when you're managing thousands of SKUs across multiple categories, channels, brands, and languages?

Suddenly, it's not so simple.

There's product data to manage, brand voice to maintain, channel-specific requirements to account for, and a constant stream of new products and updates.

And then there's localization.

One of the things we discussed is how much nuance gets lost when localization is treated as a straightforward translation exercise. The way someone describes a product in one market isn't necessarily how someone in another market would talk about it, even when they're technically speaking the same language.

It's a challenge we've seen first hand working with global brands.

What's exciting is how AI is helping make this work more scalable, while creating opportunities to make content more specific, relevant, and useful.

It's not just about producing copy faster. It's about being able to tell a better product story across an entire catalog.

As the funnel shrinks, product content reaches beyond the PDP

The traditional ecommerce journey hasn't disappeared. People still browse websites, compare products, and shop through familiar channels.

But AI-powered discovery is bringing more of the shopping journey into a single interaction, creating new opportunities for product content to influence discovery and consideration before someone ever reaches a product page.

A product that might never have surfaced for a broad category keyword could be highly relevant to a specific conversational query. A detail that helps someone make a purchase decision on a PDP could also help an AI assistant distinguish that product from similar options.

And the opportunity extends beyond optimizing individual product descriptions. Shopper intent insights can inform FAQs, category content, buying guides, blogs, and other content that connects products to the questions shoppers are asking.

As the funnel shrinks, there's an opportunity to think more expansively about product content strategy: not just what belongs on the PDP, but how product knowledge and consumer insights can create value throughout the discovery experience.

The funnel may be getting squished, but the opportunities for product content are expanding.

Listen to the full conversation.

Dan and I had a great time joining Scotty O on Always Off Brand at eTail Boston. We covered everything from AI product discovery and content creation to localization and the complexities of managing product content at scale.