eBay executives shared their thoughts about AI and agentic shopping in a post on the eBay corporate blog on January 16th. The post comes amid a busy month of AI-related announcements from tech and ecommerce players, including Google, Microsoft, Etsy, Shopify, and PayPal. In Friday’s post, four executives talked about AI trends – here are three of the ways the execs said AI would impact ecommerce.
Avritti Khandurie Mittal, eBay’s Global Head of Product, said AI will change authentication, which is an area eBay has been focused on especially in its Focus Categories – such as sneakers.
“The real shift will be trust at scale. We’ll move from static authentication to continuous verification — where AI assesses identity, intent, product integrity, and regulatory fit in real time. As a result, trust becomes embedded, not bolted on,” she said. She said by 2026, “AI will absorb complexity across translation, compliance, payments, logistics, and risk so experiences feel local, personal, and effortless.”
Mittal had more to say about AI in a LinkedIn post about her participation at a roundtable in DC at a bipartisan Congressional AI caucus last month, including how AI was impacting buyers and sellers:
“For sellers, AI is removing friction and unlocking scale. More than 10 million sellers are already using eBay’s generative AI tools, creating 300+ million listings – helping small businesses operate more efficiently, reach new buyers, and compete on a more level playing field.
“For buyers, AI unlocks hyper-personalized discovery – connecting the right item with the right buyer at the right moment. Whether someone is a collector, a car enthusiast, or a fashionphile, our goal is to fuel passions through magical and more personal experiences.”
Renée Morin, eBay’s Chief Sustainability Officer, used two examples of how she believes AI will improve sustainability. One is by making it easier for shoppers to discover used (“pre-loved”) alternatives to new products “through conversational agents or by matching an item from just a single photo.”
“I’m also optimistic about the role AI can play in strengthening circular commerce, especially at the end of life stage,” she said. “Using AI to help sort and identify recyclable materials before they reach landfill could be a real game changer.”
Senthil Padmanabhan, eBay Vice President of Global Verticals & API Platform, said AI will impact innovation, reliability, and developer productivity. eBay isn’t starting with a clean slate. “We build on top of existing products, which demands a nuanced and deep understanding of the company’s business, tech stack, and decision history,” he said.
A company’s specific context and human variance is the hardest part, he said. “In 2026, the organizations that master the ability to deliver this differentiated context to their AI systems will see exponential gains in productivity and unlock massive acceleration in how quickly they can build and ship products to customers.”
Padmanabhan spoke at the Ai4 conference in August where he said eBay developers use Anthropic’s Claude Code to track down bugs, reducing the time it takes from 2 to 3 days to triage to within an hour or 2 – “a massive savings in time,” he said.
In eBay’s introduction to the post, it cited achievements it had made last year in harnessing technology to make the eBay experience simpler, smarter, and safer for buyers and sellers around the world.
“We introduced smarter search and personalized recommendations to help buyers find the right item, launched AI-powered seller tools to streamline the listing process, and continued to expand eBay Live to new audiences, among other innovation highlights.”
