After a year of testing AI, here’s what I’m actually excited about for 2026

Hey everyone, I’m Stefan Milicevic, Strategy Director at Underground Ecom. Since we are officially in the new year, I wanted to share some of what I have reflected on and am most looking forward to in the coming months.

2025 was the year of experimentation. Brands tested AI, but few built sustainable systems around it. What stood out most was how inconsistent personalization still feels, even with advanced marketing technology. We saw some really interesting results when brands paired automation with human strategy.

When I think about ecommerce trends 2026, one stands out: AI-driven personalized automation.

I’m most excited about how AI will transform Klaviyo marketing trends, allowing brands to adapt messaging in real time.

Imagine this: A checkout-abandonment flow that does not just swap in variables, but rewrites creative dynamically. Tone, offer, and visuals adjust based on browsing behavior, order frequency, or predicted intent from profile data.

That shift matters because it changes the foundation of ecommerce automation. Instead of rigid segmentation at send time, we are moving toward continuous personalization. Brands can deliver relevance at scale without sacrificing authenticity, which many consider the holy grail of retention marketing.

Across ecommerce more broadly, a few things are converging:

• Privacy regulations are tightening

• Zero- and first-party data quality is improving

• Automation platforms are evolving from static tools into real-time orchestration engines

The result is that the line between data and creativity is blurring fast.

The real challenge in 2026 will not be access to AI. It will be maintaining human oversight. Personalization still needs emotional intelligence, ethics, and strong storytelling. AI will not replace strategists. It will simply make it obvious who truly understands their customers.

If you are leading CRM or retention, here is what I would be thinking about now:

1. Audit your customer data and make sure your foundation is clean. KDP, anyone?

2. Design flexible creative frameworks that can support real-time variation.

3. Build tight measurement loops to understand how personalization impacts engagement and AOV.

The goal is not to send more. It is to scale creativity intelligently.

Heading into 2026, I’m excited to keep testing how AI can co-create alongside human teams. The future of ecommerce automation is about delivering exactly what matters, when it matters.