The New York Times asked eight of the world's leading AI authorities: where are we in five years' time? The answers are surprising sober. And they have direct consequences for you who run online stores.
We start with the conclusion: AI is not going to revolutionize your online store overnight. But it's going to revolutionize your competitor who understands how to use AI correctly.
It's the core of the eight of the world's most profile AI experts said when the New York Times gathered them for conversation in February 2026. The panel includes everything from Yuval Noah Harari to Perplexity Manager Aravind Srinivas, from AI sceptic Gary Marcus to Risk Analytizer Ajeya Cotra. They rarely agree. But what they agree on is worth listening to.
The most important first: AI becomes dull
Nick Frost, co-grunner of the AI company Cohere, said something I think hits the nail for e-commerce: 'AI will be boring in the best way. It will slip into the background like GPS or spreadsheets.»
Think about it. GPS didn't revolutionize your life because you were impressed by satellite technology. It revolutionized your life because you stopped walking away. AI in your online store is going to work the same way. The flashy chatbot projects are not the ones that transform. It's the boring, repeating problems that all of a sudden take 20 minutes instead of three hours.
E-mail campaigns. Product descriptions. Search term analyses. Advertising texts. Customer service response. Reporting. Segmentation. This isn't sexy. But this is where the money is.
Experts agree: Programming changes most
All eight experts consider AI's impact on programming as large. It is the only category that everyone agrees. The economist Carl Benedikt Frey refers to research that developers completed problems 56 percent faster with AI tools.
What does that mean to you? That everything about building, adapting and integrating online store solutions is becoming dramatically cheaper and faster. The Shopify that cost $80,000? It'll cost a fraction. The promotion automation that required a developer for two weeks? It takes two days.
But it also means something else: your competitors are able to access the same tools. The difference is not in technology. It's in the back strategy.
Do Not Expect Miracle Course From AI
Gary Marcus, perhaps the world's most famous AI sceptics, points out that we've seen a lot of proof of concept, but little real application. And even the AI-optimists in the panel are careful. Helen Toner from Georgetown precisely formulated: "I expect AI systems that can contribute in several scientific fields, but you would still not proud of planning summer camp for your kid."
It's an important reminder for us who are working on online commerce. AI is extremely good at analysing data, finding patterns and generating variants of content. But it's bad at understanding your brand, customer's feelings and the context that makes the difference between a campaign that converts and one that fails.
Or as Frost said, ‘AI is extremely good at analysing huge amounts of data and finding answers and useful patterns. But AI is really bad at coming up with whole new ideas.’
Workplaces do not disappear. But they're changing.
Almost all experts do not believe in significant increase in unemployment as a result of AI by 2030. Only one in eight replied ‘true’ to that claim. The Perplexity commander Srinivas formulated it as: "New technology sometimes changes the nature of work in society, but it does not remove work from society."
For online stores, this means that your team is not going to be replaced by AI. But the roles change. Today, the one who spends three hours writing newsletters tomorrow spends 30 minutes — and the rest of the time on strategy, analysis and customer insight. The person who is doing paid searches spends less time making ad text and more time understanding what actually works.
The question is not whether you need people. The question is, are your people spending their time right?So let's say that this is the same thing as that.
It didn't happen to be the case that none of the experts said — but you should think about it.
The panel discussed medicine, transport, education and art. But no one specifically talked about online commerce. It's symptomatic. The AI debate is often about the big, dramatic scenarios: will AI cure cancer? Replace teachers? Get conscious?
But for those of you who run online with 20, 50 or over 100 million on the market, reality is another. Your AI revolution is not about artificial general intelligence (AGI). It's about doing the right things a little bit better, a little faster, a little smarter, every day.
It's not a revolution that happens with a click. It's a revolution that happens with a thousand small improvements.
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Five concrete things online stores should do
Based on the insight of experts — and my own experience with AI in education, internally in INEVO and at online shops we talk to — here's what you should actually do:
1. Map the boring tasks. Don't start with the most exciting thing. Start with the most repetitive. Where does your team spend the most time on things AI can already do well enough? Meetings, E-mail texts, product descriptions, report summaries, ad variants — that is the starting point.
2. Invest in strategy, not just tools. AI makes it cheaper to produce. But it doesn't make it cheaper to think. Make sure that someone on your team has time to ask the right questions — not just generate the fastest answers.
Three. Don't wait for the perfect solution. Marcus is right that we don't have the AGI. But you don't need AGI to write better subject fields, segment smarter or analyze campaign data faster. Use what exists today.
4. Train your people. The expert panel considers AI's influence on education to be moderate to large. It also applies to internal training. Your team does not need to be sent on AI courses. They need to learn how to use AI correctly in their job, with guidance and frameworks (check out our AI bootcamp for students - it is relevant to online shops as well)
5. Make sure the people are at the center. Frost said it best: 'It's the man who decides what feels right.' AI can create hundreds of variants of an ad text. But it's your marketer who knows who hits the brand.
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Thoughts of the road further
The smartest heads in the world don't agree much on AI. But they agree on one thing: the change comes gradually, not abruptly. It rewards those who act, not those who wait.
Or maybe you could say it like this:
‘AI does not replace online shops using AI. AI replaces online stores that do not.’
The next five years are not about being first. It's about not being the last.
----- The source of this article is an article in the New York TimesSo let's say that this is the same thing as that.
The article is written with Claude Opus 4.6 support
The images have been created using ChatGPT 5.2.