A quiet Google announcement got me thinking a few weeks ago.
It’s “just” a shopping cart. But the question it left me with turned out to be way more interesting than the feature itself:
If AI can do almost everything in eCom five years from now, what actually still makes your brand unique?
That thought is today's issue:
Deep-Dive | What still makes you win when AI can do everything
Quick context first.
The Universal Cart that Google announced in May might flip how people buy online.
Instead of adding a product to your cart on your site, they add it to Google's cart. From anywhere: Search, Gemini, YouTube, Gmail. The cart then hunts for deals, tracks price drops, and compares offers across every merchant selling that item.
Play that forward one step, and you get an auction.
Everyone selling that product, and even one that does a similar thing, competes for the purchase sitting in the cart. Lowest price wins. You run the Meta ads, someone adds your supplement to the cart, and Google surfaces three products with the same ingredients at a better price.
You paid the CAC. Google auctions the conversion.
Nobody knows if it plays out exactly like this. But that's exactly what got me thinking.
Because the Universal Cart is just one version of a bigger pattern: AI moving between you and your customer, and turning things you're good at into things everyone is equally good at.
Fast forward 5 years, and assume AI gets really good at all the things that are important in eCom today.
Let’s take Meta ads for example, where today creatives are the main input and driver of success.
Is it completely crazy to think that in 5 years AI can create great ad creatives, produced at scale, at close to zero marginal cost that are indistinguishable from what you are doing manually today?
At the speed things are developing right now, this is quite possible.
What about analyses that run automatically and hand you the right recommendation, based on your data and your customers' behavior? Probably too.
So I have been thinking: What are the things you need to invest in today if you still want to succeed in a world like this.
And I keep landing on two things:
Product and Brand.
If buying decisions turn into value-for-money comparisons run by machines, the better product at the lower price wins.
That was true before AI in theory, but in a world where everything is fully transparent and can be compared with AI in seconds, it could become a reality.
There is only one thing that could break this equation.
Brand.
People don't always buy the best value for money. They also buy the brand they want to be associated with.
That preference is the one thing that removes you from any comparison entirely. When someone wants THIS product from THIS brand, there is no bid to compare against. No agent, no auction, and no alternative with the same ingredients changes that decision.
Everything in between - media buying, creative volume, decision speed and quality - is at risk of becoming a commodity. Not worthless, but just no longer a moat.
Most brands invest the majority of their time and budget exactly in that middle layer of execution. And execution is what AI eats first.
Two questions worth sitting with:
If your product were listed anonymously next to its three closest competitors at the same price, would customers still pick it? If not, your product is not competitive in the world I am describing.
If your customers were offered two identical products. One without any brand and one with your brand on it for twice the price, how many of them would still choose to buy your product?
I don't have a finished answer on this one. This issue is more of a question I want to put in your head and share some of my own thinking.
So, curious to hear from you have any thoughts about what will distinguish successful brands from others in a future where AI could commoditize (almost) everything.
Just reply to this email and share your thoughts 🙂
Community Events | Cooking in Munich & Jägermeister Bingo in Cologne (brands only!)
🧑🏼🍳🍋 Italian Cooking Night | Munich, 16.09.26: Pasta in the making, glasses filled, and some of the best people in D2C right there with you.
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→ Get one of the spots💬 eCom Unity Unplugged | Berlin, 07.10.26: an elite circle of 50 top D2C brands with >20m in revenue, matched for exclusive 1:1 networking based on their interests and expertise
→ Apply for Unplugged Vol. 6
Thanks for reading.
I’ve spent the last decade figuring out what’s actually working in eCommerce, and what it’s really worth in profit.
Coming from building an 8-figure and a 9-figure eCom brand myself, plus now working with thousands of brands at Klar. And sharing the insights, frameworks, and hard-earned lessons that help you build a better and more profitable eCom business in this newsletter.
If there's something you'd like me to unpack next, just reply. I read every response.
Have a great week.
Max ✌️
PS. If you missed any past issues, you can catch up on all of them here.
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