Source: Beet
As generative AI systems filter and curate product recommendations, they're reducing consumer choice—a reversal of e-commerce's historical promise of infinite selection. Brands that previously competed through availability and discoverability now face a bottleneck where algorithms decide what gets shown. Algorithmic favoritism based on margins, data density, or training biases becomes a primary competitive lever, displacing marketing spend and product quality. Retail shifts from an open marketplace to a managed editorial space where AI literacy and platform relationships matter more than shelf space ever did.