Insight from Iz Beltagy, Chief Scientist & Cofounder at Envive

‍

Iz Beltagy shared that while expectations around AI are undeniably inflated, the underlying technology has already crossed a critical threshold of real-world usefulness. The moment feels similar to the early 2000s .com era: big ideas emerged before the infrastructure was ready, some efforts collapsed, but eventually nearly everything that was imagined then did become reality. The difference now is that the gap between hype and capability is far smaller — and the evidence of impact is already here.

‍

The “bubble” narrative matters because executives, VCs, and operators are deciding where to place real resources. Marketers and ecommerce teams especially want clarity: will AI actually drive revenue and profit, or just create more noise? The answer lies in distinguishing what is genuinely ready from what remains aspirational.

‍

A practical path forward: focus AI on downstream outcomes that matter — revenue, engagement, customer satisfaction — and choose tools that directly move those levers. That makes the decision simple: if a solution measurably improves the metric you care about, it’s worth investing in.

‍

There are already intuitive examples where AI delivers durable value for commerce today. In customer support, where ~80% of questions are product-related, automation can measurably reduce resolution time and costs while improving the experience. In site search, AI can eliminate zero-result queries — especially when shoppers use natural language (“shoes to wear” vs. “blue dress”) — unlocking higher conversion from the highest-intent visitors.

‍

The history of innovation suggests this isn’t a bubble bursting — it’s the future arriving unevenly. AI may not yet match every aspiration, but the systems in place today are already transforming ecommerce experiences and bottom-line performance.