What: Galeries Lafayette’s e-commerce director, Régis Pennel, explains how generative AI and agentic commerce are reshaping search, visibility, and product data strategies in retail, emphasising the coexistence of SEO and AI-driven discovery.

Why it is important: The shift to AI-driven discovery and agentic commerce is forcing retailers to overhaul digital infrastructure, prioritize data quality, and rethink visibility strategies to remain relevant in an algorithm-first marketplace.

Régis Pennel, e-commerce director at Galeries Lafayette, outlines how the rapid rise of generative AI and agentic commerce is fundamentally transforming the way retailers approach search, brand visibility, and product data management. While traditional SEO remains essential, Pennel emphasizes that AI-powered conversational interfaces and answer engines are introducing new metrics—such as share of voice in AI responses and brand presence in generated answers—requiring retailers to adapt their strategies. The focus is shifting from driving traffic to ensuring visibility and influence within AI-mediated environments, where structured, high-quality product data and machine-readable content are now critical. Pennel notes that the quality, completeness, and normalisation of product data directly impact a brand’s likelihood of being recommended by AI agents. As AI-driven discovery becomes mainstream, retailers must invest in robust data infrastructure, technical adaptation, and new measurement tools to remain discoverable and competitive. Those who fail to adapt risk losing direct customer relationships and market relevance as AI agents increasingly mediate the path to purchase.

IADS Notes: The rapid evolution of generative AI, agentic commerce, and new search paradigms is fundamentally reshaping e-commerce, brand visibility, and product data strategy. As highlighted by Journal du Net (January and April 2026), AI-driven traffic to retailers has surged—up 830% year-over-year in the US during the 2025 holiday season (Forbes, November 2025)—with agentic shoppers showing significantly higher conversion rates than traditional search users. This shift is forcing retailers to move beyond classic SEO and embrace Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), focusing on machine-readable, authoritative content and robust product data governance (Bain & Company, March 2026; Inside Retail, November 2025). The rise of AI-powered answer engines and conversational interfaces means that visibility is now measured by brand presence in AI-generated responses, not just web traffic or rankings (Adventures in Consumer Tech, November 2025). Retailers must adapt by enriching and structuring product data, optimising for AI agents, and investing in data infrastructure to remain discoverable and relevant (Journal du Net, April 2026; BCG, September 2025). The transition to agentic commerce is also shifting power from traditional websites to AI platforms, requiring new technical standards, trust signals, and cross-functional leadership to ensure brands are surfaced in AI-mediated shopping journeys (Inside Retail, April 2026; McKinsey, November 2025). Those who fail to adapt risk losing direct customer relationships and competitive advantage as AI becomes the primary gateway for product discovery and purchase.

Galeries Lafayette is adapting its digital strategy to the rise of generative AI