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eCommerce businesses are spending an average of $369,916 on AI, but 32% see only minor gains

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  • New research by Storyblok reveals eCommerce businesses have spent an average of $369,916 on AI in a bid to enhance the digital customer experience
  • 28% have spent more than $500k 
  • Key AI applications cited include customer service (60%), marketing analysis (48%), website content creation (47%), and translation services (47%)
  • Still, 32% of business leaders state AI has only made a slight improvement
  • Yet nearly all (95%) of businesses consider this a good ROI 

New York; 23 April 2025: eCommerce companies are investing significant capital in AI to improve the customer experience, however, many businesses are yet to realize significant gains. These are the findings of a new survey of senior executives at 300 large and mid-sized e-commerce companies in the US and Europe by headless CMS Storyblok.

eCommerce businesses have spent an average of $369,916 in the past year on developing or implementing AI solutions to enhance their digital customer experience, with 28% spending more than $500,000. Yet almost a third (32%) state that their AI investment has only made a slight improvement to their customers’ digital experience.

Surprisingly, nearly all of business leaders (95%) say that their AI investment has delivered a good Return on Investment (ROI), of which 39% perceive it as a very good ROI. This potentially indicates businesses are taking a longer-term view of AI investment to improve their digital offering.  

The research also explores the most popular use cases for AI amongst business leaders, which were cited as customer service (60%), marketing analysis (48%), website content creation (47%), translation services (47%), and automating admin tasks (43%).

Dominik Angerer, CEO and Co-Founder of Storyblok said: “The transformative potential of AI for the digital experience is enormous, but our research highlights a clear gap between expectation and reality. While eCommerce businesses are seeing some improvements, these remain incremental rather than truly transformative. What’s particularly interesting is that despite this, most business leaders still consider the capital they have committed to AI a good investment. This could suggest that many companies do not expect big gains immediately, but are instead taking a longer-term view of AI to transform their digital offering.  

“To unlock AI’s full potential, businesses must go beyond surface-level implementations and integrate AI in a way that drives meaningful transformation. Core to this is the flexibility to scale with ease, and that’s where composable architecture comes in, enabling companies to seamlessly integrate AI-driven solutions across multiple channels without the restrictions of legacy systems. From hyper-personalization to seamless localization, nearly every possible AI use case could be implemented more effectively, and to a higher standard if businesses raised the digital bar and embraced modern marketing technology.”

Note

Storyblok conducted the survey of 300 business leaders and executives with OnePoll. The survey ran between the 3rd and 7th of March 2025.

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Storyblok is a headless CMS for marketers and developers who want to make a bigger, faster market impact. It frees you from the pain of legacy CMS platforms and empowers your teams to ship content quickly and build with complete flexibility. 

Legendary brands like Adidas, T-Mobile, and Renault use Storyblok to make content management fun and collaborative. It’s Joyful Headless, and it changes everything.

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