AI isn’t a pilot anymore
Boston marked the shift from GenAI hype to ROI. Leaders are scaling proven use cases and cutting experiments that don’t pay back.
Noibu blog
From pilots to ROI: What eTail Boston 2025 signals for the next era of ecommerce
Industry interviews
.png)
Get the full episode here
🎧 Listen to the full conversation on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube
Six months can change everything in ecommerce.
At eTail Palm Springs 2025, the mood was experimental—retailers were piloting generative AI, testing omnichannel concepts, and probing loyalty models.
By eTail Boston 2025, the tone had shifted. Pilots gave way to ROI, personalization moved from theory to execution, and even networking was redesigned into something measurable.
That’s why this episode of Ecommerce Toolbox: Expert Perspectives with Lena Moriarty, Head of Marketing at eTail, matters so much. Lena doesn’t just curate panels—she sees in real time what gets traction with operators, what executives push back on, and what technologies actually earn budget.
Here’s what her vantage point reveals—and what it means for senior ecommerce leaders heading into 2026.
1. AI has crossed the chasm: From pilot to ROI
At Palm Springs: “GenAI was the talk of the town. GenAI this, GenAI that.”
By Boston, the conversation had matured. Executives weren’t asking “what is AI?”—they were asking “what ROI did it deliver?”
- Agentic AI took center stage, with real demos of time savings and workload reduction.
- Attendees shared candidly where AI worked—and where the returns didn’t justify the investment.
- The shift was clear: AI is now an operational driver, not window dressing.
👉 Executive takeaway: If your AI strategy is still in “pilot mode,” you’re behind. Leaders are already scaling proven use cases and cutting dead weight.
2. Cross-department adoption is make-or-break
Technology is no longer a siloed marketing decision.
“With all of the incoming technologies, you’re needing more buy-in from finance. You’re needing your customer service department to fully understand the implications.”
— Lena Moriarty, Head of Marketing at eTail
What Boston proved: ROI stalls without cross-departmental alignment. Finance, CX, and operations must be in the loop early, or adoption bottlenecks will slow down results.
👉 Executive takeaway: Build cross-functional adoption muscles now. The speed of ROI depends on it.
3. Customers will share data—if the value is clear
For years, personalization carried a risk: how much data would consumers actually hand over?
At Boston, the answer surprised many.
“Funny enough, customers are more likely to give more data if it means they get a better personalized experience.”
— Lena Moriarty, Head of Marketing at eTail
Rather than pushing back, customers are easing into hyper-personalization—provided the benefit is immediate, transparent, and valuable.
👉 Executive takeaway: Don’t fear personalization. Fear irrelevance. Show the payoff clearly, and data sharing follows.
4. Networking itself is being engineered for ROI
eTail has always been known for networking, but Boston demonstrated a reinvention.
Instead of awkward icebreakers, attendees experienced what Lena calls “engineered networking.”
- Store tours at Dick’s Sporting Goods and Fluevog Shoes revealed in-store innovations, sparking real conversations.
- Environments were designed for trust-building and long-term follow-up—not just business card swaps.
👉 Executive takeaway: Events and partnerships aren’t about volume of contacts—they’re about curated experiences that produce measurable ROI.
5. Awareness is back in 2026
After years of “the funnel is dead” debates, Boston signaled a swing back to top-of-funnel investment.
“I think awareness is back.” — Lena Moriarty
Why?
- Q4 2025 is holiday ROI season, but…
- Tariffs in spring 2026 will squeeze margins, pushing brands to find cheaper awareness channels.
- Scaling reach efficiently will matter more than ever.
👉 Executive takeaway: Awareness is not optional. In 2026, cheap, scalable visibility will separate brands that survive from those that lead.
6. Lena’s playbook for ecommerce leaders
What to apply now:
- Stop dabbling. Move AI from pilot mode into ROI-driven execution.
- Align early. Make cross-functional adoption a core discipline.
- Personalize with purpose. Transparency and payoff win customer trust.
- Engineer experiences. Curate environments that deepen relationships and ROI.
- Invest in awareness. Top-of-funnel spend is regaining strategic weight.
Final thought: Six months can change everything
In half a year, ecommerce leaders went from AI hype to ROI, from personalization fears to consumer acceptance, from siloed tech bets to engineered collaboration.
As Lena puts it:
“Now that we’re actually having some unique case studies and takeaways and figuring out what works and what doesn’t, that was really the next big hot topic at eTail Boston.”
For senior ecommerce executives, the mandate is clear: experiment broadly, measure relentlessly, and double down where ROI is real.
.png)
.png)