Overview
What it is and the problem it addresses.
A reference design for an AI-native commerce platform. Shoppers can browse or simply describe what they want, while merchants manage catalogue, orders and campaigns from one admin.
The problem
Traditional stores rely on rigid category trees and keyword search. Shoppers with a need in mind rather than a product name struggle, and merchants lack tools to tune what shoppers see.
- AI shopping assistant
- Product discovery and recommendations
- Catalogue and search
- Cart and checkout
- Storefront customisation
- Merchant analytics
Main features
What the concept includes.
Conversational discovery
The assistant answers from catalogue, stock and policy data, compares options and adds items to the cart.
Hybrid product search
Keyword, semantic and visual search with facets and merchandising rules.
Recommendations
Related, complementary and personalised suggestions that merchants can pin or exclude.
Cart and checkout
Accessible checkout with saved methods, tax and shipping calculation and abandoned-cart recovery.
Storefront customisation
Theme tokens, sections and templates editable without code changes.
Merchant analytics
Funnel, search and product performance reports tied to real order data.
Architecture overview
How the pieces fit together.
- 01
Storefront
Server-rendered front end with a themeable component library.
- 02
Commerce services
Catalogue, pricing, cart, orders and inventory exposed as APIs.
- 03
Search and AI layer
Hybrid search index plus an assistant that calls catalogue and policy tools.
- 04
Payments and fulfilment
Licensed payment provider and shipping integrations through webhooks.
Example workflows
How it is used.
Guided purchase
- 1Shopper describes a need
- 2Assistant retrieves matching products
- 3Shopper compares and adds to cart
- 4Checkout through the payment provider
Merchant campaign
- 1Merchant selects a segment
- 2Engine suggests featured products
- 3Merchant approves
- 4Storefront updates and results are tracked
Target users
- Online retailers
- Brands launching direct-to-consumer stores
- Marketplace operators
Potential integrations
- Payment providers
- Shipping and fulfilment
- ERP and inventory
- Email and CRM
Security considerations
- Card data stays with the payment provider
- Role-based merchant permissions
- Assistant limited to catalogue and policy data
- Audit log of admin actions
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