From Click to Conversation – Why India may define the Next Retail Era
Target’s CIO even called it “conversation curation in a retail space”.
Walmart followed with its OpenAI partnership where CEO Doug McMillon declared: “For many years now, eCommerce shopping experiences have consisted of a search bar and a long list of item responses. That is about to change.” Customers do not want to scroll through lists. They want to express intent, clarify through dialogue, and get to what they want without friction. The age of the search bar is fading – globally this feels like a leap, in India it feels natural.
India has always been a conversation-first market:
In a typical Indian kirana (local grocer) you never begin with categories. You start with context. “I need some spicy snacks for guests dropping in tonight”, and the shopkeeper narrows the field instantly. The same instinct guides fashion stores where you describe the person, the mood, the moment, and the salesperson curates without you naming a product. Across India discovery has always been a dialogue, not a mechanical task. Conversational AI is simply helping digital commerce behave the way India already shops. Intent is no longer forming inside search bars. It is forming inside conversations. And customers are ready for it. Mastercard’s research with Harris Poll shows that 51 percent of Gen Z trust AI product recommendations more than their own judgement.
The Era of Agentic Commerce: What we are seeing now is not a collection of trials. It is the early architecture of agentic commerce, where AI evolves from reactive to proactive. It learns preferences, anticipates needs, plans next steps, and guides customers long before they reach a product page. This fundamentally separates discovery from destination. Where customers find you and where they transact may no longer be the same place.Brands that do not adapt risk fading from the discovery layer, which is fast becoming the new battleground for influence.
Why India may emerge as Retail’s Most Important Testbed: India’s complexity and diversity is becoming its competitive strength. With 22 official languages and hundreds of dialects, traditional eCommerce forced customers into English-first interfaces that never reflected real behaviour. Conversational AI dissolves that barrier. It can speak Tamil, Marathi, Kannada, Bengali, Hindi, or English with equal ease, mirroring how India communicates.
Accessibility is another accelerant. Many Indians, especially older users do not find app navigation intuitive. But everyone can talk.Voice-first commerce requires no digital literacy. It only requires intent.
Shift unfolding at scale: At Fynd we have seen this shift unfold at scale. For example, our conversational AI Kaily powers ZIP, Ajio’s fashion assistant. With 86 percent positive ratings and 88 percent of chats focused on discovery, customers are not experimenting. They are relying on it.And this is not only an India story. The shift will be everywhere. India is simply living it earlier.
Walking through more than 100 stores in London recently, I saw retail tech that felt a decade old. The gap between where the broader tech world has already moved, with agents, AI, and natural conversation, and where most retail still operates is striking.
What Brands Must Do: These shifts aren’t tomorrow’s problem. They require action now and structural rethinking over time.
Act now:
- Enrich product data for semantic understanding,
- Add metadata for use cases, mood, and style,
- Build real-time feeds for pricing, inventory, and availability,
- Check how your products surface in AI recommendations, and
- Write descriptions that answer conversational questions.
Rethink structurally:
- Who owns the customer when discovery happens elsewhere,
- Whether your interfaces meet conversational expectations,
- How merchandising works when the grid is not the first touchpoint,
- How brand affinity is built when AI is the gateway, and
- Whether teams are organised around channels or around customer journeys.
The Window is Opening – For India and the World: Every major platform shift has rewarded early movers.
Mobile-first retailers gained years of advantage. Early adopters of social commerce-built communities remain loyal even today. India, with its comfort with conversation, a cultural rhythm of contextual buying, and the scale to validate new behaviour quickly, may define how the world enters this new retail era.
Now the important question – is your brand ready for a market that no longer clicks first, but speaks first, just like India does?
Let’s discuss.
Sreeraman Mohan Girija (SMG) is a Mumbai-based entrepreneur and co-founder of Fynd. With a strong foundation in product design and over a decade of deep experience in retail technology, he is passionate about how AI is reshaping modern retail ecosystems. His work centres on building impactful, scalable solutions used by some of India’s largest brands, with Fynd’s technology now deployed across 20,000+ stores nationwide. He continues to drive growth and expand Fynd’s global footprint, including its fast-growing presence in the UK.
