The AI-Native Shopping Opportunity
The way we shop in 2035 will look drastically different from shopping in 2025. Ten years ago, most purchases were still happening on desktop. Instagram didn’t have shopping features, fashion bloggers were the influencers of the day, Shopify was just beginning to set the stage for the coming DTC boom, and Amazon was growing into a towering behemoth of utility-driven commerce. Today, AI represents a new computing wave—one that unlocks entirely new interfaces for shopping.
While the current landscape is abundant with founders focused on improving aggregated search with AI—through prompts or images, with much of the effort concentrated on the secondary market—I believe we are still early in the cycle. Similar to the last decade of venture outcomes in shopping, new business models will emerge (e.g., Stitch Fix, Rent the Runway), next-generation marketplaces will be built (e.g., eBay, Poshmark, GOAT), and fashion-focused platforms that blur the line between shopping and entertainment (e.g., Whatnot, Shein) will explode in popularity.
Gaming, social, and shopping are no longer separate categories. This convergence, fueled by advances in AI, is driving new behaviors, new products, and massive opportunities. Here are five areas where I see the potential for breakout consumer businesses:
AI Shopping Agents: Personal Shoppers for the Masses
We’ve seen how technology makes services that were once the reserve of the few (Uber chauffeurs, Instacart grocery shopping) available to the many. Personal shoppers and stylists—once exclusive to celebrities and the wealthy—curate looks, handle purchases, and deliver pieces tailored to taste, body type, and context.
This time, the digital stylist service scales not by hiring more people, like Stitch Fix or Trunk Club, but by training better models. The result is personalization at zero marginal cost. Today, the AI agent personal shopper is no longer constrained by inventory. Now that the web can be more effectively indexed, AI enables personal shopping at a much lower cost.
A pure B2C play might look like a platform where anyone can have a personal shopping agent—or choose from a marketplace of agents trained on famous creators or stylists, each reflecting a unique taste and offering varying levels of human involvement. Accessed via text, email, or browser extension, the agent can talk with you and both reactively and proactively send you links to specific items you’re searching for, or proactively create lookbooks based on your personal style or travel schedule. A sleek onboarding process will be key to conversion. The AI agent should get to know you through previous purchases, social posts, saved items, and screenshots.
The business model could be a hybrid: a paid subscription based on the volume of items sourced or lookbooks created, topped up with affiliate revenue and sponsored placements. At ~400,000 users paying $20/month, you’ve built a $100M ARR business—and that’s before layering on affiliate and brand revenue.
There’s also a prosumer opportunity in the go to market here: to serve real stylists and create an entirely new market of entrepreneurs who use an AI agent to assist in finding items and curating lookbooks for paying customers. These pro users would pay a monthly fee, just as they would for any other creative software—potentially combined with usage packages, brand placement fees, and other value-added services.
Human-Craft: The Counterculture to AI Fast Fashion
Etsy used to be a marketplace for artisans and artists making handmade goods. Today, it’s saturated with drop-shippers and factory-direct imports. As Temu and Shein continue to grow, and as AI bleeds into creativity and manufacturing, a counterculture platform will emerge—one that highlights human craftsmanship again. Handmade items! Homegrown goods!
This mirrors what we’re seeing in the art world, where dealers and institutions are seeing renewed demand for artists whose work accentuates the human element (e.g., SF MoMA’s upcoming retrospective on Ruth Asawa and the Whitney’s recent Biennial emphasis on tactile media like ceramics and textiles).
The resurgence of crafting hobbies is also evident in cultural trends: knitting apps are topping the App Store as a wellness activity, and “DIY and Dine” and “Bitch and Stitch” events are gaining popularity on social media, where individuals gather to create and share their projects (#needlepoint).
Perhaps this ends up looking like a marketplace and social networking site—with opportunities to buy, sell, learn, and connect with others online and IRL, all with a wholesome farmers’ market feel.
The New Shopify: Reinventing the Storefront
Shopify has helped hundreds of millions of people create online stores, yet the storefront itself hasn’t meaningfully evolved from its original template-based form. Buying things online is still boring—the only novel mechanic borrows from the streetwear drop model, with ephemeral stores that aren’t always “open” to serve demand.
AI-native commerce needs an interface that’s fluid, playful, and alive. A new player could emerge here—one that goes beyond the current e-commerce framework and offers entrepreneurs new types of storefronts with truly imaginative templates. Livestream platforms have come the closest to blending shopping and entertainment, but there’s still plenty of room to push the format further.
Whether it’s game-like, voice-driven, or built with evolving interfaces that mimic immersive retail displays, AI can enable infinite, personalized, and creatively merchandised experiences. There’s a $10B opportunity for a new commerce platform that powers this next generation of AI-native shopping.
Fashion Games: Real Money Meets Real Style
The next Dress to Impress, Infinity Nikki, or Zepeto will probably be built by a non-technical fashion lover. Generative AI will continue to make it even easier to build games: just type out your prompt or talk through your idea, and an agent will write the code and bring it to life. A simple game dev assistant or creation platform—specifically designed and trained for casual fashion simulation games—will be built to serve the women who make up 55% of all mobile gamers globally.
What also excites me is the idea of an AI platform that helps creators earn millions by selling skins, outfits, and accessories. The in-game cosmetic items market is projected to surpass $50 billion by the end of the decade —and deep down, everyone loves playing dress-up.
Another area of opportunity is the potential to fuse elements of real-money gaming with shopping to create an entirely new social commerce platform. Blending casino mechanics with shopping has huge creative potential, especially if you play with ideas of chance, skill, and reward. There’s a $10B+ company to be built here (maybe even a $100B one) that makes fashion and shopping more fun—and financially rewarding.
Wardrobe as an Asset: AI-Enabled Business Models
AI agents present an arbitrage opportunity for tastemakers. On the supply side, trained agents dramatically increase efficiency across the entire fashion industry. Combined with robotics, they enable mass customization—allowing manufacturers to produce unique garments for individual customers. Tastemakers will become designers, turning AI-assisted creations into storefronts and monetizing their aesthetic at scale, with an AI agent handling inventory, customer service, merchandising, and more.
On the demand side, AI will finally help people understand what’s actually in their wardrobe, while legislation around Digital Product Passports will make it significantly easier to catalog your newly ‘connected’ outfits.
What interests me here, however, is less the Clueless-style digital wardrobe dream, and more the potential for financial products that treat your wardrobe as an asset class. An agent will keep you updated on your ‘wardrobe net worth,’ proactively handling buy/sell/trade opportunities that grow your wardrobe wealth and help you make money—e.g., “Sell these 3 items to earn an estimated $1K for your summer vacation.”
We’ve already seen the sneaker bot economy thrive, with developers selling or renting bot software. I expect this to proliferate further as people build smarter agents tailored for the secondary market.
AI is quietly reshaping the way we shop, discover, and express ourselves. We’re still early in this shift, and there’s room for entirely new platforms, behaviors, and business models to emerge. If you’re building in this space—reimagining a category or creating a new one—I’d love to hear from you.