AI Tools for Business: A Guide To Using AI for Ecommerce

If you run an online store, you’re probably managing product launches, marketing, customer support, and more. Luckily, with AI tools for business available, you can handle more in less time, even if you’re a team of one. 

AI tools automate ecommerce tasks like inventory management, customer support, content creation, and analytics reporting. You can even start with free AI tools to avoid a large upfront investment.

This guide covers various use cases of artificial intelligence for online stores in 2025 and how to choose the right AI-powered solutions for your business.

AI tools for ecommerce productivity

AI frees up humans to focus on the work they do best. That’s especially true for these AI tools aimed at boosting productivity.

Notion: project management for online stores

Notion is an all-around project management system with powerful AI tools across its functionality. The Projects tool, for example, uses AI to streamline workflows, mark items complete, and generate reports. The Notion AI assistant summarizes notes, identifies takeaways, makes lists of actionable to-dos, and more. 

The combination of flexible project management with AI help makes Notion a solid productivity solution for your ecommerce business. Plan your product launches, manage content calendars, track inventory, and centralize your team’s resources or documents in one workspace.

Pricing: Notion offers a free plan with limited features and Notion AI trial. Paid plans start at $12 per user per month for Plus subscription. At present, Notion AI is available only in Business ($24 per user per month) and Enterprise (custom pricing) plans. 

Pros: Ready-to-use ecommerce workflow templates, clean user interface, ideal for asynchronous collaboration.

Cons: Steep learning curve, lack of offline mode, limitations for large or complex datasets.

Getting started:

1. Sign up for Notion, create a new workspace, and add your team members to the workspace. 
2. Create separate Notion pages that serve as databases. For example, product database, order management database, customer relationship management database, and so on. 
3. Set up a dashboard to track key performance metrics for sales, marketing, operations, and customer support.

Otter: transcription and meeting intelligence

Otter transcribes audio in real time to help you focus on the conversation, whether it’s a team Zoom meeting or an in-person interview. 

Once Otter processes audio files, the AI timestamps conversations and organizes them by speaker. For example, once you identify Speaker 1 as Bob, it finds and replaces “Speaker 1” with “Bob” throughout the document.

Otter summarizes the conversation, with headers, main discussion points, and questions asked. It also breaks down the percentage of time each contributor spoke. 

Pricing: A free version of Otter offers limited capability and 300 monthly transcription minutes capped at 30 minutes per conversation. Paid plans start at $16.99 per month or $100 per year, billed annually. 

Pros: Fast and accurate transcripts, AI suggestions for important highlights.

Cons: Limited export/editing options in the free tier.

Getting started:

1. Sign up for Otter and connect it to your Zoom or calendar app to automatically join and record video calls with team members, suppliers, or customers.
2. Record and transcribe customer service calls for quality checks and training purposes.
3. Record and transcribe meetings with vendors or manufacturers to keep detailed notes on negotiations, product specifications, and delivery timelines.
4. Use Otter during product planning calls or marketing strategy meetings to automatically generate meeting notes.
5. Review transcribed conversations to identify common customer pain points, supplier issues, and team decisions to inform business improvements.

Claude: advanced AI assistant for merchants

Claude is a generative AI (GenAI) assistant and family of large language models (LLMs) built by the AI research and development company Anthropic. Use it to write ecommerce product descriptions or brainstorm ideas for your marketing campaigns. 

To automate customer support functions, integrate Claude chatbot into your ecommerce store. It helps with tasks such as tracking orders, answering frequently asked questions, or recommending relevant products.

Pricing: Claude offers a free plan with usage limits and access to the default model. Paid plans start at $20 per month, which provides access to all Claude models, higher usage limits, and advanced features. 

Pros: High-quality long-form responses, excels at summarizing complex content, strong reasoning capabilities.

Cons: Usage limitations even on paid subscriptions, inconsistent performance in niche domains.

Getting started:

1. Sign up for Claude and create your workspace. 
2. Use Clause to extract insights from raw data such as product lists and sales details. Or generate summaries of supplier contracts.
3. Write product descriptions, customer emails, website copy, social media posts, and more. 
4. Install AI chatbot to handle customer inquiries and resolve common issues.

Here’s a quick comparison of the AI productivity tools listed above:

Also read: 10 Best AI Productivity Tools To Enhance Your Workflow

Best AI tools for ecommerce marketing

Effective marketing requires understanding your target audience, reaching them where they are, and engaging them to become customers and remain so over time. These AI marketing tools can help.

Shopify Inbox: chatbot creator for customer engagement

Shopify Inbox is Shopify’s messaging tool that comes with the platform. It lets you chat with customers while they browse your website. It’s the little chat bubble you often see in the corner of an ecommerce site that says “Need help?” or “Message us.” 

So, when customers have a question like “Does this shirt come in blue?” they can send you a message through the chat box. Your support team will receive a notification and can chat with them in real time or leverage AI to handle queries for you 24/7. 

Leather tote retailer Oak & Elk uses Inbox’s smart assistant to handle repetitive, easy questions. The brand has set up instant answers for questions like “How long does shipping take?” and “What materials are your bags made from?” When a customer clicks on one of these questions, the chatbot automatically gives them the correct answer. 

It’s a huge time saver, but that’s not all Inbox can do. Other common use cases include:

• Displaying warm welcome messages for browsers
• Offering discount links
• Sharing product recommendations
• Converting shoppers into buyers through personalized assistance 

Manage conversations on desktop or through the Shopify Inbox mobile app. Multiple team members can be assigned to manage different conversations, each with the appropriate permissions. Additional features include the ability to set specific hours when live chat is available, and provide AI-generated responses during off-hours.

Pricing: Shopify Inbox is included with all Shopify plans.

Pros: Built directly into Shopify, it gives you full context when you’re chatting with a customer. You see their name, what’s in their shopping cart, order history, and more. Shopify Inbox allows you to provide fast and personalized support.

Cons: Doesn’t integrate with other third-party services. If you require more advanced features, you’ll need to use a paid customer service platform like Gorgias or Zendesk. 

How to start:

1. Install Shopify Inbox on your store by adding it from the Shopify App Store. 
2. Set up your chat settings and appearance from the Shopify admin under the “Apps and sales channels” menu.
3. Configure your inbox settings, including notifications, quick replies, and message preferences.
4. Enable the online store chat by customizing your chat button and greeting message.
5. Make sure your staff have the required permissions to use Shopify Inbox features.

Once set up, customers can contact you from your online store, and you can manage and respond to messages from your desktop or mobile device. 

HubSpot: an all-in-one marketing platform

The key features of HubSpot include marketing automation, customer relationship management (CRM), and sales functions. AI tools pop up across the platform, which help you automate tasks like email marketing campaigns and lead nurturing. 

With HubSpot’s AI-powered marketing platform, quickly generate sales outreach emails, marketing copy, blog posts, meta descriptions, social media posts, calls to action, and even web pages using a text prompt. 

The AI also uses sales and CRM data integrations to provide insights and personalize customer interactions.

Pricing: HubSpot does offer some free AI marketing tools, and charges different prices for different products. Paid plans for the marketing hub start at $15 per seat per month.

Pros: All-in-one platform with powerful AI and marketing tools, plans range from individual business owners to enterprises, easy to scale.

Cons: Complex pricing, A/B testing available only with high-tier (starting at $890 per month) plans, additional charges for onboarding and technical support.

Getting started:

1. Sign up for a HubSpot account and connect your ecommerce store.
2. Create personalized marketing offers with the personalization tools. They build customer segments and analyze customer behavior to identify high-intent buyers for you.
3. Use HubSpot's AI content creation tools to write product descriptions, emails, newsletters, social media posts, and blog posts.
4. Track performance, identify winning campaigns, and forecast marketing return on investment (ROI) with predictive analytics.

Buffer: AI-powered social media management

Buffer automates the creation and publishing of ecommerce content across your social media channels. Its key features include board view, content creation and management, social media templates, social media scheduling, and team collaboration. 

With Buffer, easily draft and schedule social media posts for auto-publishing on different platforms. Its AI assistant also helps generate ideas and write captions and hashtags for your social posts. 

In addition, the tool tracks engagement for multiple campaigns in a single dashboard. 

Pricing: Buffer offers a free plan for up to three channels. Paid plans start at $6 per channel per month.

Pros: Easy to use, scheduling tools, affordable for small ecommerce businesses.

Cons: Advanced analytics and collaboration tools only available on paid plans.

Getting started:

1. Create a Buffer account and connect your brand’s social media accounts (e.g., Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, LinkedIn).
2. Use the AI assistant to suggest content ideas, write captions, or generate hashtags.
3. Schedule and publish posts, then track campaign performance to hone your strategy.

Here’s a quick comparison of the AI marketing tools listed above:

Best AI tools for ecommerce customer service

Providing quick and reliable customer support is key to winning loyalty. AI tools help you reduce response times with automatic responses for common customer queries like tracking order details or product troubleshooting. 

These two AI tools help improve your customer support process.

Botpress: no code chatbot builder

Botpress is an open-source AI agent platform that helps you build highly-customized chatbots. It uses NLP to increase your chatbot’s understanding of customer intent and respond to queries better.

Automate your customer support workflows such as answering FAQ, handling product return requests, tracking orders, or recommending products. Its no-code editor makes it easy to create multistep conversations. 

However, if you’re an advanced user, you can make use of extended customization features using APIs and integrations. Botpress also supports multilingual customer service, making it an ideal choice for international stores.

Pricing: Botpress has a free open-source version available for beginners, and paid plans with advanced features start at $89 per month.

Pros: Easy to implement no-code builder, more customization options, simple integrations with external tools.

Cons: Steep learning curve for advanced configurations, may require coding knowledge for custom integrations.

Getting started:

1. Sign up for Botpress and build a new bot.
2. Decide which customer service tasks you want to automate (e.g., answering FAQs or tracking orders). Accordingly, configure conversation flows for your bot.
3. Connect the AI chatbot to your ecommerce platform and other systems like CRM or warehouse management software to provide real-time information.
4. Test your bot to make sure it’s working properly. Ask queries like customers and see whether it follows the configured conversation flows. 
5. Deploy the chatbot on your ecommerce site, app, and social accounts. 

Also read: AI Agents: How They’re Transforming Ecommerce in 2025

Kustomer: AI-powered customer relationship management platform

Kustomer unifies customer conversations from multiple channels such as email, chat, SMS, and social into one timeline. This gives a comprehensive view of customers’ interactions with detailed reports so you can offer more persoanlized and proactive support.

For example, your support agents can see a complete history of each customer, including their purchases, past conversations, preferences, and more. So whenever customers reach out, it’s easy for your agents to view the customer profile and know what’s going on. This helps them resolve customer issues faster. 

Pricing: Kustomer offers two subscription plans: Enterprise and Ultimate. Enterprise starts at $89 per seat per month, and Ultimate, which includes advanced features like skill-based routing and real-time pulse dashboard, costs $139 per seat per month.

Pros: Unified CRM can improve agents’ productivity, automated conversation routing based on customer behavior, customizable dashboards.

Cons: Advanced customizations may require technical support, expensive for startups and small businesses, limited or restricted integrations.

Getting started:

1. To begin, request a demo or product tour on Kustomer’s website. 
2. Choose the right plan and integrate the platform with your ecommerce store.
3. Set up AI assistants and train AI workflows with common customer issues. Then import past support data to build customer profiles.
4. Onboard your customer service team on Kustomer’s platform.

Here’s a quick comparison of the AI customer service tools listed above:

Best AI tools for creative work in ecommerce

Advanced AI-powered solutions can complement your own creative work (e.g., helping with brainstorming content ideas or designing your mobile apps) or generate completely new works in the form of video clips and other content.

Shopify Magic: copywriting and product descriptions

If you’re a Shopify user, you can use an AI-powered suite of tools across the Shopify platform. Shopify Magic helps users write, edit, and optimize content including blog posts, email campaigns, and product descriptions. 

Many of the functionalities, such as product descriptions and email copywriting, are also available in multiple languages, including English, Spanish, French, and Chinese (simplified).

While automating tasks with Shopify Magic helps you save time and boost operational efficiency, it also saves costs by replacing expensive manual processes. For example, leather goods brand Jill’s Homestead reported replacing a $250 photo shoot with AI-edited images.

Pricing: Shopify Magic is available for free on all Shopify subscription plans (no additional cost or usage limits). Shopify pricing plans start at $39 per month for Shopify Basic, $105 per month for Shopify Grow, $399 for Shopify Advanced, and $2,500 and up per month for Shopify Plus. 

Pros: Integration with Shopify store data, supports multiple content types and languages, comes at no extra cost, helps streamline content creation (product descriptions, emails, or website copy).

Cons: Outputs may be generic and require editing, other tools might be more suitable for long-form content like blog posts or newsletters. 

Getting started:

1. Log in to your Shopify admin (If you’re new to Shopify, first sign up and then log in).
2. Shopify Magic features are integrated across various parts of Shopify, such as product descriptions, product pages, Shopify Email, Shopify Inbox, and the theme editor.
3. For example, to generate product descriptions, go to Products in your admin, select a product, and click the “Generate text” icon in the description box.
4. Enter product features or keywords to get AI-generated content suggestions.
5. You can also use Shopify Magic to generate media assets like images and logos through the media editor.

Jasper: content creation for online stores

Jasper is an AI-driven platform that supercharges the content-creation process, generating copy ranging from SEO-optimized content to punchy Instagram captions. Chief among Jasper’s AI-powered features is its ability to learn your company’s voice and maintain it across the content it creates. 

To begin, select a brand tone of voice or let Jasper scan existing assets like your website, style guide, and product descriptions to learn your style. With more expensive plans, customize different tones for different channels and audiences. For example, you might select one tone for executive speeches and another for blog posts. 

Jasper can also optimize existing content for search engines and check grammar usage. And, its AI image generator helps you create images to post with your content or for any other use. 

Pricing: Jasper offers two subscription plans: Pro and Business. You can try the Pro plan for free for seven days and pay $69 per month thereafter. The Business plan is available at a custom pricing.

Pros: Quick content generation at scale, plenty of content creation tools within the platform, ecommerce-specific templates, higher content accuracy compared to other tools.

Cons: Relatively expensive compared to paid plans of other generative AI models like ChatGPT or Gemini, advanced features (such as style guide, visual guidelines, Jasper studio, document collaboration, and more) are available only in the Business subscription. 

Getting started:

1. Subscribe to the right Jasper plan based on your team size and requirements. Or test a seven-day free trial for the Pro plan.
2. Upload your brand voice document and other resources to generate consistent content output.
3. Use Jasper’s templates to generate content (e.g., product descriptions, blog posts, ad copy, emails) and refine the AI-generated content before publishing. 

Pictory: video content for product showcases

Pictory is an AI video generator, as well as an automated video editor. Simply copy and paste a product description, product page copy, blog post URL, dedicated video script, or other text, and Pictory will create high-quality videos to go along with it. 

You can also use Pictory if you have an existing video file you want to edit. For example a webinar, a podcast recording, or a Zoom town hall. Pictory pops up a transcript and lets you edit the video simply by deleting and moving text.

AI-generated videos include narration, captions, images, AI voice overs, and background music. They also incorporate your company’s custom branding. Finally, its AI removes silences and filler words like “um” and “uh.” 

Pricing: Pictory offers four pricing tiers: Starter, Professional, Teams, and Enterprise. Starter plan costs $25 per month (one user, 200 video minutes, one brand kit), Professional plan costs $49 per month (one user, 600 video minutes, five brand kits), Teams plan costs $119 per month (three or more users, 1,800 video minutes, 10 brand kits), and custom pricing and limits for the Enterprise plan.

Pros: Ability to create videos from text, script, or URLs, generates captions and AI voice-overs automatically, option to change video formats for different platforms.

Cons: AI voice overs can sound robotic, unable to use multiple audio tracks in one video.

Getting started:

1. Sign up for Pictory and get the free trial.
2. Enter your video script or product page URL into the tool. 
3. Select or edit visuals, voice-over style, and captions. Then customize the video as per your brand style guide and choose the video format. 
4. Export your video to your ecommerce store or social media accounts.

Here’s a quick comparison of the AI creativity tools listed above:

Also read: Top 5 AI Content Creation Tools

Best AI tools for ecommerce data analysis

Ecommerce data like sales transactions, website traffic, and customer interactions provide actionable insights to increase conversions and profitability. For example, identify bestselling products from sales data or customer drop-off points from website interactions. Then act on it. 

These AI tools help you analyze ecommerce data and get insights to improve your store’s performance. 

Shopify Analytics and Reporting Dashboards

Shopify Analytics provides you with the real-time performance and recent activity data of your Shopify store. You can track your total sales, conversion rates, website traffic sources, sales by product name, visitors and gross sales by device, and more from the customizable analytics dashboard on your Shopify admin panel. 

These insights help you understand customer behavior and sales patterns. With this information, adjust your merchandising, marketing strategy, and pricing to maximize conversions, sales, and average order value (AOV).

For example, if you see an increasing number of visitors from a specific region to one of your product or category pages, try location-specific retargeting ads to convert those customers.

Pricing: Shopify Analytics comes free with every Shopify plan (except the Starter plan, which has limited reporting). However, for advanced reporting features, you need higher-tier plans like Shopify Advanced or Plus.

Pros: Integrated into the Shopify platform, centralized dashboard to review sales and visitor data across all sales channels, supports third-party analytics tools like Google Analytics for deeper insights.

Cons: Advanced reports may require higher plans, customizing reports using ShopifyQL or configuration panels may require technical knowledge.

Getting started:

1. Log in to your Shopify admin and head to Analytics from the main menu.
2. Check the Analytics dashboard, where you’ll see key sales, orders, and visitor data.
3. To view detailed reports, go to Analytics > Reports.
4. You can view reports for specific date ranges by adding or removing filters. If you’re a Shopify Advanced or Plus user, you can create custom reports and dashboards. 

Google Looker Studio: visual analytics dashboards

Google Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) is a free tool from Google that allows you to turn your raw data into interactive dashboards and reports. It helps you track sales, website traffic, customer behavior, and campaign ROI. 

The tool can pull data from Google Analytics, Google Ads, BigQuery, or platforms like Facebook Ads and Shopify, then display it in dashboards. 

Pricing: Looker Studio’s basic version is available for free with a Google account. The paid version, Looker Studio Pro, costs $9 per user per project per month and includes advanced admin features and support.

Pros: Easily connects with other Google platforms like Google Analytics, Google Ads, Google Workspace, etc., drag-and-drop interface to create custom reports and dashboard, ready-to-use templates for various use cases.

Cons: Limited in-depth data analysis capabilities compared to advanced business intelligence systems, sometimes users may face issues of slower loading times or data inaccuracy.

Getting started:

1. Sign in to the Looker Studio with your Google account.
2. Connect your data sources (Google Analytics, Google Ads, or external apps).
3. Choose or create a report using templates from the gallery.
4. Share or embed your dashboards, or upgrade to Pro for advanced team functionality.

Here’s a quick comparison of the AI data analysis tools listed above:

How to choose the right AI tools for your online store

Follow this simple framework to choose the right AI tools based on your ecommerce store’s size, business goals, current tech stack, and budget.

Assess your business needs

Identify the areas of your ecommerce operations that would benefit the most from automation. Think of time-consuming tasks (e.g., manual inventory tracking, data analysis, answering common customer queries) that would improve productivity if automated. 

Also, check how these automations align with and contribute to your business goals. Will they increase conversions, reduce cart abandonments, or speed up order fulfillment? This ensures you’re investing in tools that drive business results.

Check integration with your ecommerce platform

Look for AI tools that easily plug into your existing ecommerce workflow. For example, if you’re a Shopify merchant, opt for tools that directly connect with your Shopify store or support integrations through Shopify’s API or App Store, or Zapier. 

Additionally, check whether the AI tool syncs with your sales, customers, and inventory data. Also find out how well it works with your existing tools like your CRM, email marketing platform, analytics, etc. This can save you from data silos and wasted resources.

Calculate estimated ROI for AI investments

Finally, assess the business value the AI tool delivers. It can be saving time, increasing sales, or improving customer satisfaction. Calculate the estimated ROI using a simple formula: 

ROI = (Revenue gained - Cost of the tool) ÷ Cost of the tool × 100

For example, an AI chatbot costs $500 per month and reduces your customer support overheads by $2,000. In this case, your ROI is 300%. 

Also, consider both direct revenue (increased sales, conversions, or AOV) and indirect savings (reduced ad spend or abandoned carts). This helps ensure investments in tools that improve your store’s profitability. 

Also read: How To Build an AI Strategy: Tips for Small Businesses