Korea's Commerce Corporations Rush to Adapt to AI-Driven Product Discovery

Korea's commerce corporations are rapidly adopting artificial intelligence (AI) to change consumers' product discovery paths, according to a study by Salesforce, Inc.

The Global Commerce Trends Report found that about half of Korea's commerce corporations have already begun responding to AI search platforms by providing product data feeds. The report surveyed 3,450 commerce experts across 13 industries in 20 countries, including Korea, to examine commerce organizations' adoption of AI agents and changes in consumers' product discovery and purchasing behavior.

The share of consumers using AI assistants at the first stage of shopping rose 200% from a year earlier, while traffic flowing into commerce sites via AI chats increased 150% to 428% year over year. By contrast, the number of consumers using traditional search engines to find products fell by 15%. The use of new channels such as AI assistants, social media AI, and delivery applications increased 38%, and product discovery through brands' own channels also fell 7%.

Korea's corporations are adapting to these changes, with 48% providing product data feeds to AI search platforms, 46% pushing to expand exposure of their products and brands on external platforms and channels, and 44% producing or optimizing content for conversational and question-based search. However, many still struggle with internal data integration and system fragmentation.