How AI Will Take Over Ecommerce in the Next 12 Months with Jo Lambadjieva

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How AI Will Take Over Ecommerce in the Next 12 Months with Jo Lambadjieva

Joanna Lambadjeiva, founder and CEO of Amazing Wave Digital, an agency that helps Amazon and e-commerce businesses unlock scalable growth through practical AI solutions. From AI-powered business process audits to tailor-made strategies, team training, and streamlined operations, Jo and her team help brands identify inefficiencies and build custom systems that actually move the needle.

With a proven track record of helping brands increase productivity, scale creative output, and build more agile teams, Jo is here to show you how to stop dabbling in AI and start integrating it in a way that’s strategic, sustainable, and wildly profitable.

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> Here’s a glimpse of what you would learn….
  • The rapid integration of AI in e-commerce and its transformative effects on shopping behaviors.
  • The importance of adapting business strategies to remain competitive in a changing landscape.
  • The role of AI agents in making purchasing decisions for consumers.
  • The significance of user-generated content and community engagement for brand visibility.
  • Strategies for optimizing product listings and enhancing brand content using AI tools.
  • The shift from traditional SEO to AI-driven recommendation engines.
  • The necessity for brands to diversify beyond platforms like Amazon to mitigate risks.
  • The potential for AI to enhance internal operations and improve team productivity.
  • The importance of building authentic brands that meet customer needs in an AI-driven market.
  • Practical steps for e-commerce businesses to start leveraging AI tools effectively.

In this episode of the EComm Breakthrough Podcast, host Josh Hadley interviews Jo Lambadjieva, founder and CEO of Amazing Wave Digital. They discuss how AI is rapidly transforming e-commerce, from changing consumer shopping behaviors to the rise of AI-powered agents making purchase decisions. Jo shares actionable strategies for brands to adapt, including leveraging AI tools for product optimization, building authentic engagement on platforms like Reddit, and preparing for an AI-driven marketplace. The episode offers practical advice for e-commerce businesses to stay competitive and thrive as AI reshapes the industry landscape.

Here are the 3 action items that Josh identified from this episode:
  1. Start Your AI Habit Now
    Spend 10 minutes a day using AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude to brainstorm, test prompts, or analyze data. Small, consistent use compounds fast.
  2. Optimize for AI Discovery
    Publish helpful content on Reddit, Wikipedia, and reputable media—these are the sources AI models trust and pull recommendations from.
  3. Test Fast, Iterate Faster
    Use AI to A/B test images, copy, and listings weekly. Treat AI as your “rapid testing lab” to stay ahead of slower-moving competitors.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Special Mention(s):
Related Episode(s):
Episode Sponsor
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by eComm Breakthrough Consulting where I help seven-figure e-commerce owners grow to eight figures.
I started Hadley Designs in 2015 and grew it to an eight-figure brand in seven years.
I made mistakes along the way that made the path to eight figures longer. At times I doubted whether our business could even survive and become a real brand. I wish I would have had a guide to help me grow faster and avoid the stumbling blocks.
If you’ve hit a plateau and want to know the next steps to take your business to the next level, then go to www.EcommBreakthrough.com (that’s Ecomm with two M’s) to learn more.
Transcript Area
Jo Lambadjieva 00:00:00  If you really just start putting all of this into like one neat package of what this means, it means that, yeah, shopping is going to be very soon, very AI powered. And for that reason, you have to start making some smart decisions about how to, like, pivot your business and sort of diversify your risk. If you are just like basically focus on just one platform, e.g. Amazon.
Intro 00:00:28  Welcome to the E-com Breakthrough podcast. Are you ready to unlock the full potential and growth in your business? You’ve already crossed seven figures in sales, but the challenge is knowing how to take your business to the next level.
Josh Hadley 00:00:41  AI is rewriting the rules of e-commerce in real time. Agents shopping is coming when AI agents are buying for your customers. Will your brand even show up in their cart? If you’re not adapting now, you are already behind. Welcome to the Econ Breakthrough Podcast. I’m your host, Josh Hadley. I scaled my own brand from 0 to 8 figures in sales, and now my mission is to take it to over nine figures on my journey to nine figures, I bring you unfiltered conversations with the smartest minds in e-commerce.
Josh Hadley 00:01:12  Past guests include Kevin King. Michael E Gerber, author of the E! Myth. And Brandon Young from Cellar Systems and Data Dive. Today’s guest is someone that is at the forefront of one of the biggest shifts happening in e-commerce right now the integration of AI into the core of how brands operate at scale and compete. I’m thrilled to welcome Jo Lambadjieva, founder and CEO of Amazing Wave Digital, an agency that helps Amazon and e-commerce businesses unlock scalable growth through practical AI solutions. From AI powered business process audits to tailor made strategies, team training, and streamlined operations. Jo and her team help brands identify inefficiencies and build custom systems that actually move the needle. With a proven track record of helping brands increase productivity, scale and creative output, and build more agile teams. Jo is here to show you how to stop dabbling in AI and start integrating it in a way that strategic, sustainable and wildly profitable. With that introduction, welcome to the show, Jo.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:02:18  Thank you Jo. Thank you so much for having me.
Josh Hadley 00:02:21  Jo. I am stoked to have you on the show, because you have one of the kind of, I would say, one of the most well renowned, AI newsletters in the e-commerce space. And we were just talking about how we were at the Amazon Accelerate event a few weeks ago, and you kept getting hit up from people that were like, hey, you’re the girl who does the AI newsletter everywhere you want. So you’re becoming wildly popular, Jo. So I’m honored to have you on the show.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:02:52  Thank you so much. I wouldn’t call it wildly popular, but it is very bizarre when people stop me and say, hey, like, you know, I really like a newsletter. It’s kind of a surreal and nice and very embarrassing kind of go and hide in a cupboard kind of moment. So. Yeah.
Josh Hadley 00:03:08  Hey, well, that means you’re doing something right. that means obviously people are reading your newsletters and they’re sharing it with other people. Otherwise it wouldn’t be gaining the momentum that it is.
Josh Hadley 00:03:19  And, Jo, that’s exactly what I want to dive straight into today. eCommerce is changing and it’s changing fast. we there’s so much happening, not only with Amazon and Rufus and Cosmo, but OpenAI is already making some big plans to dive into that e-commerce space. We’ve also heard perplexity diving into the e-commerce space like the world, the e-commerce world as we know it, 3 to 5 years from now is going to look drastically different. And I am of the belief that the people that are surviving and thriving in that new e-commerce environment 3 to 5 years from now are going to be the people that are actually implementing changes to their business now, because otherwise you’re just going to get left behind. So, Jo, would you see that as a true statement? And what do you see happening? if you were to put on, look into your crystal ball right now, what do you think the future of e-commerce looks like 3 to 5 years from now?
Jo Lambadjieva 00:04:21  Yeah, funnily enough, I would be even so both to say it’s not even 3 to 5 years from now.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:04:26  I think it’s more in the space of 1 to 2 years. I think I think people don’t necessarily realize exactly how fast AI is moving. You know, I’ve, I’ve been writing my newsletter for about a little more than two years now, and I write it every week, three times a week. And it’s been kind of like a crazy ritual that I do every week. And so what this has allowed me to do is to see exactly how quickly we are shifting in terms of its dramatic shift in terms of what AI is capable of and like, how much these companies are being invested in and how much that is allowing them to, like, build more and more and more. So what you’re seeing is companies like OpenAI sort of sprawling in terms of the elements in which or like the industries in which they are kind of like starting to gain momentum. And one of the industries is obviously e-commerce. and, you know, just last Monday, you know, so in what is it like now, the end of the end of September? OpenAI just announced that ChatGPT now can accept, essentially purchases within the environment of charge, which is, you know, it’s insanely huge news for e-commerce, because if you just put it into the context of where we are in terms of ChatGPT usage, ChatGPT has 700 million weekly users, right? And these are users that are insanely trusting towards ChatGPT.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:06:05  I think most people, like just general users, don’t necessarily are not always able to catch when AI is hallucinating or saying something factually incorrect. So there is just a really huge trust within ChatGPT. And I would say it’s probably as big as the trust that consumers have towards Amazon. And so that’s why this is so huge. Because if ChatGPT, when you ask a very specific question about that pair of hiking boots with like that particular padding and that particular size at that particular price gives you three options and recommends you those, well, you bet you that the consumer is most likely going to pick one of those three options. And so really, you know, and we’ve looked at like we’ve seen this in terms of data. You know, although in the grand scale of things, still AI driven traffic, to website is still not such a huge chunk in terms of the actual intent and the conversion rate that this traffic is achieving is so high. Like, you know, Ahrefs did again, like about a couple of months ago, a study where they found that less than a percent of traffic, leads to 12% of overall conversions.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:07:24  I mean, it’s insane. So, you know, and there was another like, stat that came out last week was that 20% of all, referral traffic to Walmart is now coming from ChatGPT. So, you know, everything is kind of like stacking up. You know, this is this is super high intent. Traffic is growing really fast. ChatGPT is going really fast. And it’s not just ChatGPT, you know, we are, like, refocused. Like focusing too much on, on just one platform. But we have platforms like complexity. We have platforms like cloud. And then we’re not even, like scratching the surface of the fact that meta is like one of the biggest investors in AI right now. And so if you really just start putting all of this into like one neat package of what this means, it means that, yeah, shopping is going to be very soon, very AI powered. And for that reason, you have to start making some smart decisions about how to, like, pivot your business and sort of diversify your risk.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:08:30  If you are just like basically focus on just one platform, e.g. Amazon.
Josh Hadley 00:08:36  Yeah. No, I, I love that and I, I believe the same thing. I think you’re right. Like it is this could be a lot faster 1 to 2 years from now I think five years. We have no idea where this thing’s going to go. But here’s what I think is going to happen. Just as like people will have kind of personal shoppers, right? That will go out to the mall and buy a bunch of different clothes and a couple different sizes and colors and patterns, etc. and then they bring them back home. And then that the customer ends up saying, hey, I like this. I like that this fits well, this doesn’t fit well, like what AI is going to do. And I think this is the important thing to like, convey to the listeners is like, this isn’t necessarily anything new per se. It’s an old way of things that have already been happening in the in our world, but it’s just being brought to the masses.
Josh Hadley 00:09:31  Okay, so now you’re going to have more personal shoppers, which is going to be your AI agent, which is simply looking around, knowing your preferences, knowing all of your million data points, that of who you are, and then is going to recommend very specific brands and very specific patterns or designs or styles or colors to you because it knows you so well. And so I think the important aspect here is, as you mentioned, the other aspect of this that is not necessarily new, but it is changing. This is basically basically search engine optimization, right. And we’re seeing kind of the death of traditional SEO on Google. Right. Like that’s not a big topic of conversation right now because you’re right. Like the the domains that are referring, website traffic right now, it’s primarily like all of the AI tools right now, whether it’s meta, Claude, perplexity, ChatGPT, etc.. So if that’s the case, what’s exciting to me is like for me personally, like I was never in the Google SEO game, right? Like that was never a core competency for me.
Josh Hadley 00:10:45  But hey, this is a new like the level. The playing field has been leveled and so now it’s a new level of SEO that, hey, if you want to get in, now’s the time to get in. Everybody has an equal footing. And what’s interesting here, Jo, that I think we should call out and I would love to then dive into like, what are some specific action items that we can recommend to our listeners, which is this if you are currently selling on Amazon right now, Amazon is not providing their feed over to like open AI. So open AI is not crawling Amazon and shooting traffic over to Amazon. But Google is right. So like you’ll find a lot of Amazon listings if you just search something on Google. Right. You’ll find that a lot. Amazon gets a ton of traffic from Google. So what happens if a lot of the traffic starts moving from these chat agents. And it’s referring in Amazon. If it continues to dig in its heels and say, no, we don’t want bots crawling our site.
Josh Hadley 00:11:50  No AI integrations. I can’t imagine that they do that if they begin to see like, traffic falling off a cliff. But I think the importance is this, like you have no idea what Amazon’s going to do and in fact you have no control over it. So why don’t you begin doing something you have control over. And if you see where the puck is moving in e-commerce and everybody’s hungry to get off of Amazon, nobody loves having 100% of their sales coming from one sales platform. Guys, this this is the opportunity. This is like a Amazon back circa, you know, 2005, 2010 all over again. It’s TikTok shop in 2023 all over again. Like this is a new opportunity and a new frontier that I’m super excited about. Jo, my question is great. people know this. They’re like, excited about it. But here’s the problem. I have no idea what to do. I have no idea how to optimize my listings. What in the world do I do? Because there is no playbook for hey, here’s exactly how to get your products recommended by OpenAI right now.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:12:57  Yeah, and I think this is really important to bear in mind. Like anyone, including me, who says, like, you know, there is only one way and this is the way is probably for like, you know, the reality is that, no, there isn’t yet an official like advice. This is so new. And, you know, we’re all kind of scratching our heads and still figuring out, okay. And also, the biggest problem actually of this entire field is the measurement. Like at the moment, the way that AI trackers like in terms of like mentions are working is by, you know, going and measuring the number of calls for a particular sort of like search quote. But this is wildly inaccurate as well because AI tailors the answers for each and every user based on the previous chat. Yeah, it’s not it’s not a exact science, but there is some research in terms of, you know, what large language models right now use as some of the most frequently sourced sources.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:14:04  and then there is obviously some research done in terms of, okay, from what we have seen generally what might be moving the needle. So I think it’s really important to like for you to always just bear in mind that this is still very much an experimentation. And I think with anything new like this, that’s why it’s an opportunity, because people still haven’t figured it out. If everyone knew how to do it ABC, then like clearly it will be already a saturated market. But what we know is that every large language model has a slightly different preference preference in terms of what they, like, basically source their recommendations from, something like ChatGPT like really heavily skewed towards Wikipedia, Reddit, YouTube and just generally, I guess across all of them, they love user generated content. So like, you know, the Reddit’s the chorus of this world, like, rank high for something like the Google AI overviews or perplexity. Actually, number one is Reddit. So the conclusion is one of the most important channels or two of the most important channels actually, that you should focus on figuring out how to get in.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:15:21  There is one Reddit and then two Wikipedia. and the reality is that, Wikipedia is in itself kind of like a more of a, of a like kind of an ongoing process. And it’s not so simple. But there is ways Like, obviously you just need to make sure that you get some, mentions from reputable sources and then go through the process. but Reddit is I think it’s like a slightly more straightforward, I guess, let’s call it process, whereby ideally what you want to first do is figure out the, the subreddits, which are specifically relevant for your product or niche. There is several tools that you can use. One is gummy search, which is a fairly inexpensive tool which I recommend people to check out because it also can give you a lot of very valuable data in terms of your niche. Basically, what it does is it sums up, like different trends. like on, on Reddit’s like it shows the, it can basically based off a search term, it can create all of the most relevant, Reddit threads.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:16:36  it shows you which threads are kind of, growing in terms of popularity. He can show you where, for example, your brand or your competitor brand have been mentioned. So it’s really, really great in terms of insight. and another tool that you can use is for example, SEMrush, where you can like literally go and find, again based of a keyword, the specific sub, subreddits that discuss that like topic. And it also the cool thing is that it includes also the traffic volume. So once you have that list, it’s time to sort of, decide where you where you focus your efforts. I mean, again, it depends on how big is your team, but generally what you want is to start building a continuous engagement in these, Reddit’s and like, you know, if if you want to focus, focus on obviously the ones which have the highest, search or highest traffic from then on. You know, there is obviously like gray hat techniques, which I’m not going to discuss right now, but generally what you want is to provide like advice, commentary that is genuinely helpful.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:17:53  of course, as, as a brand, like if you want to do it through your own kind of Reddit account, you can do it. But you need to be maybe a little bit forthcoming about the fact that you’re a brand, and sort of like, then provide genuine advice and helpful advice. if you want to do it through like a personal account, I would say, you know, just again, be helpful. Be genuine. Be authentic. understand the tone of voice of each, subreddit and understand the rules of each subreddit. Like, Reddit is like a place where there is a very strong moderator culture, so you don’t want to just go plop some links because you’re going to certainly going to get banned. and so, yeah, I think it’s just a more of a development of an ongoing strategy. And it’s not about just saying, hey, my brand is great, buy it. It’s about, you know, smartly including relevant information for that ICP that is asking a question on Reddit and then in a smart way, perhaps recommending your brand.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:18:59  But it’s about building over time, trustworthiness and authority. So Reddit is one way. Wikipedia is another one. The other really important thing when it comes to, basically being recommended by, AI search engines is, brand spread of mentions. So basically how widely your brand has been mentioned across reputable resource sources. And so these this is more of a kind of a I would say again, like a long term play where you focus on maybe getting your brand. It’s more like actually a digital PR exercise. How can you get into the forums of this world? How can you get into, like, the Marie Claire’s of this world? now there is a service called press X, which actually does, pitch articles connected with your product to some of these, like really premium publications, and you pay on a cost basis and they have a really large portfolio of, of publishers. So that’s kind of like a shortcut where you can pay to play. But yeah, again, it’s about sort of building your overall presence across as many different sources as possible that say, hey, this is a great product for this particular use case.
Josh Hadley 00:20:22  Jo, my mind has, I’ve, I’ve already been feverishly taking notes for my own team already. this is fantastic. All right, so if I’m to digest this, what you’re saying is, hey, if the future world of e-commerce shopping is going to be a joint and you have ChatGPT and metas and perplexities etc. that are doing your shopping for you and recommending products for you, the way that they’re acquiring their knowledge right now is primarily through Reddit forums, pedia pages. And then they’re also scouring the web from really well established credible domains such as like a Forbes, things like that. It’s going to take that information, gather it, and they’re going to be looking for, I don’t know, what are the top brands that are talking? What are the top brands that are mentioned for water bottles for kids as an example. Right. And then it’s going to start saying hey in Reddit forums, right? It’s not even and perplexity does a good job of telling you like how it got the information it got.
Josh Hadley 00:21:29  But, that’s the interesting thing is I would encourage people like search. Like pretend you’re the customer. Hey, I need a cute water bottle for my kids at school. Okay. See what perplexity does. And see which Reddit forums it’s like currently pulling the the data from right? Because it will show you. Hey, we got this recommendation from this forum here on Reddit. So click into that forum and I love your strategy. Like have somebody on your team that’s dedicated to being helpful in Reddit. And again, I think one of the key takeaways there is like it’s not spamming Reddit with like your links and saying, hey, check out this. It’s like you actually have to like dive in and like be a heavy Reddit user. Like you’re helping. You’re even talking about restaurant recommendations, even though that does nothing for your brand. But like when that happens, then it becomes a lot more credible, right? And things can get upvoted. So anyways, long story short is Reddit. That’s a very, very big place that anybody can easily go implement today, but it would require like a full time effort and like diving in and knowing like you’re this is a long term play.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:22:45  Yeah.
Josh Hadley 00:22:46  Wikipedia.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:22:47  It’s just one thing to add is like, you know, I think, this is of course, we’re talking about how to get like AI to recommend your products. But if you if you actually really smartly play like create a Reddit strategy like this is this is a place where real people go and ask for advice. You know, over time, this is going to play out as actual brand awareness and like search volume across even just standard things like Google or Amazon. So you can’t just look at it as a sort of formulaic, oh, if I do this, then this, it’s like, yeah, just general genuine brand engagement with your customer. Like talking with your actual potential customers, which is, I think, super valuable.
Josh Hadley 00:23:36  So, Jo, I’m curious, like in the Reddit space is if you’re in there commenting, although you want to ultimately have perplexity, recommend your specific product link to somebody if. How do you get that into like a Reddit forum? Is it just like you mentioning your brand name and just say, hey, you’re looking for a cute water bottle, why don’t you check out the Stanley the Stanley Cup for your kids? Is it as simple as that? And it’s like there’s no link.
Josh Hadley 00:24:09  You’re just saying, here’s the brand Stanley Cup. And is it as simple as that or does it need to be more SEO? Have it heavy on your recommendations?
Jo Lambadjieva 00:24:20  Yeah. I mean, the reality is that, if we like we the, the, the, our Amazon space has probably talked about Rufus to death, but let’s let’s like go back to the analogy of how to optimize for Rufus. Optimizing for Rufus is all about bringing contextually relevant information specific to your ICP within your listing. Basically, it’s trying to figure out how to preempt within our listings all of the possible like use cases, benefits like questions, doubts, or whatever, like aspirations that customers have. And they might be asking Rufus well, like the same thing applies within with large language models, right? The customer is most likely going to not be, looking for they’re not like, again, we need to get out of the mindset of search terms on Amazon. We’re not talking about 3 or 4. We’re not even talking about three four word terms.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:25:24  We’re talking about Problem specific or very, very specific queries like, you know, if we’re talking about the Stanley Cup, it’s like like, you know, the the question will be and I want to find a sturdy, like cup that will keep my drinks hot and cold. And it going is going to fit, in my BMW like this model cup holder, that I don’t have to wash or that is like dishwasher safe. That’s going to be the query. And so if you know that, then you’re ready. Response will be, you know, I love my Stanley Cup because I am a busy mom of three. And every morning I don’t have enough sleep. And so I need to have a gallon of coffee that will fit while I’m on the move. And by the way, my kids love shopping or like checking around all of my stuff. So it needs to be sturdy and ideally needs to last at least five hours while I’m on the move. And so it’s basically going back and connecting with who this customer is.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:26:40  Again, it’s funny, like I feel AI is all going to kick our asses to move from, you know, the hacky. Let’s figure out how to like, shove our keywords and our products in front of the customer to going back to really old school marketing, which is, hey, this is an actual human. Why are you selling them this product? Why are they buying your product? Like what? Like what? Where are they? Like, what are they consuming? Like what? What is their like psychological motivators. Like what are their actual problems? Like what are their like aspirations. And then being there where the customer needs. But you need to start with the customer because AI in essence is going to be the most knowledgeable person about that customer person. It’s going to be the most knowledgeable tool about that customer, and that’s why that is going to work so well with them, because AI would always figure out what they need because like, you know, we don’t even realize exactly how much information we are right now putting in the hands of companies like anthropic, OpenAI like perplexity.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:27:51  We are telling them so much. And guess what? They will use it to like, you know, you know, adapt their tone of voice to be exactly how we want somebody to talk to us. They will be providing us with the products that we really love because they know exactly the ship we’re dealing with. There will be, you know, just saying the right thing in the right place. And so we’re going to trust them so much. It’s actually really, really scary if you really think about it. But yeah, this is where we are heading. And so you really need to know your customer in order to do it properly, but and also understand what AI will be probably recommending.
Josh Hadley 00:28:27  Yeah, Jo.
Outro 00:28:28  I think you hit the nail.
Josh Hadley 00:28:30  Right on the head there. I think that this is nothing new. It is just a new form or fashion. Right? Which is this is going back to legacy principles, right? Throughout the ages of time, e-commerce or commerce in general. Has it been about meeting the needs of somebody else? And so I think the best way for people to visualize this, Jo, is for imagine that you are able to talk to every single customer that comes to your website as though they’re walking in your, like, store, like a physical store, and you have the opportunity to sell them.
Josh Hadley 00:29:13  That is exactly what is happening. AI is basically in a virtual environment, allowing the customer to say, hey, I’m coming in, I’m looking for this. And then you as the brand be able to say, like, here’s my products. I might be able to meet your needs. Let me try to convey those to you. And so I think if you actually truly understand your customer and this all goes back to like, what is it that’s unique or different about your product? How does your product actually serve the needs of your customers? So I do think, you know Jo’s I think more about this. The commodity products, the people that have, you know, gotten rich on Amazon from saying, hey, here’s a nice spatula, I’m just going to throw my brand name on it, and I’m going to make a million bucks from it. Like once upon a time that was happening. And we see that as kind of dying out with all the overseas competition and things like that. But in the new world of AI and ecommerce, I think that that dies even faster because you do.
Josh Hadley 00:30:18  You have nothing unique unless you have gone crazy in Reddit forums and you have a really good like case point and PR about like how your spatula is different. So I think this just goes back to like the fundamental business basics, which is who is your customer? And are you creating really, really good products to serve that customer and be able to basically lead them along a customer journey? I think that the brands that succeed in the next 3 to 5 years, yes, they’ve been able to figure out, you know, we have social commerce that’s happening, but they are also have kind of they’ve figured out how to serve the customer for the life of that customer. So after they purchase that first product, what’s the next product they should be buying from you? And if you don’t know, you’re like, oh, I don’t know. They just bought this this water bottle for me. I don’t know the next thing that they need. You need to get into the mind of that customer. You need to actually probably jump on calls with your customers and be like, what else could I serve you with? Right.
Josh Hadley 00:31:28  Maybe it’s if they’re buying it for their kids in lunchbox in school, maybe a lunchbox or a backpack is the next thing that they need help with. Right. And so I think that’s the important aspect is like, look, just get down to the basics of like serving people, period. And I believe that’s also a big component of why we’re here on Earth, is to learn how to, like, work with others and serve others. And when you put the needs of others in front of yourself, that’s where really, really good things happen, not only in your business life, but also in your personal life as well. So I think like there’s that’s just an eternal truth that I think will always be there throughout all time and eternity. So, Jo. All right. Let’s let’s go way back like we’ve got off on so many little rabbit holes, which this is just awesome. we’ve got Reddit, we’ve got Wikipedia. And then you also talked about getting on into press and established credibility websites, Forbes, etc., so that those are the specific action items that people can do right now that can help lead them down this path.
Josh Hadley 00:32:33  As things continue to evolve with with AI and e-commerce. So now my next question for you, Jo, is like, so what else? What else is changing and what else? What are the tools or AI that people should be implementing in their own businesses? I think that we’re not far away. Maybe it’s a year or two from now where there’s $100 million brand with one person and a bunch of AI agents working with them. I don’t think we’re that far away from getting that reality. Maybe I.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:33:05  Know, but I.
Josh Hadley 00:33:05  Don’t know.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:33:07  I think I think you’re right. But I also don’t think that this should be our aspiration in general. I think like, it’s very nice on paper, but if we just think about the consequences on a macro level, like just, you know, of course I that’s my profession. Like I look into how to create efficiencies using AI. And yet I always say like, you know, don’t try so fast to replace the human like humans are there to, like, be essentially superhumans if they use AI.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:33:43  And so instead of trying to get to this like one person and tons of agents idea, why don’t you like get to 200 million with like a team of humans with AI agents? So like, you know, it’s very tempting to just think, oh yeah, what a wonderful future. Let’s just get rid of out of a humans. And we’re just going to be very rich. And then AI agents are going to do all of this for us. But this like in general, this is not this is not utopic. It’s actually really scary. And I feel like we should just. Yeah, we should maybe reflect a little bit about the gas pedal that, tech companies are right now pressing pretty hard without like, enough consideration about the macro climate. So I just want to say that before I continue with the practical implementations. So in terms of practical implementations, like I think the I’d say every like every Amazon seller or e-commerce seller should now, experiment with at least 3 to 4 different tools. So obviously ChatGPT if you’re not paying for the plus version, please.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:34:58  You know, this is your homework for today. best $20 spent. You know, ChatGPT is brilliant and like, it’s kind of like a Swiss Army knife. Like, you know, it has a lot of capabilities. it does certain things better than others, but in general is a great tool to start with. And if you feel really overwhelmed by AI, like just start experimenting with ChatGPT and that that already is going to be brilliant. another tool and I think within this, like, you know, ChatGPT is great at data analysis. obviously it’s great at, doing things like the pre search. It’s great for some like light automations with custom chips. There is a lot of use cases. the next two that I would say, a lot of, a lot of people don’t necessarily have not tested but is actually one of my favorite, is, Claude Claude is really fantastic because it has a completely different way, almost of, of, let’s say, thinking or generating things like text. it’s definitely the most human sounding AI or large language Tomorrow.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:36:12  So if you’re doing anything like copy heavy so like product listing, descriptions, blog email, whatever, that’s going to be a much better output in terms of following a specific tone of voice or just basically sounding like a human has written it. Aside from that, Claude has a really, amazing capability to do something called artifacts, which you can see almost like as a tiny mini applications, which are actually really, really useful within day to day. So like, you know, for example, I like to show how you can build yourself a tiny RFP form, which, you know, it’s like a fully interactive thing where with dropdown menus, etc.. So let’s say your VA just has to fill in a few fields and then it like it basically spits out a fully fledged like brief for like, you know, whether it’s your, you know, some manufacturer or whether it’s like, for if you’re searching for an agency, whatever it is like. There is so many use cases, and you can build these and share them across your team and they take and all you need to do is literally chat with a bot.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:37:22  So it’s like like all just based off text. So you just if you have an idea, you can build that within cloud. And the third tool that I would say is very much, should be used by sellers right now because it offers an incredible opportunity. Is the Google, the Google Creative Suite? if you don’t want to punt it for going for the Vo three model, that’s absolutely fine. You know, that’s still pretty expensive, but just start with, Gemini 2.5, which is right now free or how it’s called commercially or popularly, nano banana. And that has amazing image fidelity. So, you know, you can, like, put your product within any sort of, like, image setup. And the product is pretty much always kind of spot on in terms of labels and in terms of, how it comes out. So, I mean, of course, I haven’t tested all categories. There might be exceptions, but in terms of, AI generated images with products, I think this is the best options as of now.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:38:38  And then number four, I would play around with something like, an, a genetic, browser. like one of my favorites is Gen Spark. and if you want like an extra, extra a lovable is a great, platform where you can essentially build anything like, an, an app, a website, whatever you have in mind, just reusing natural language.. So, you know, there is almost never been a easier like time to create things to put your ideas into a working prototype. you just basically need to start. And that’s what I say to all of the teams that I train is like, you know, AI is a muscle. You have to train it every day and you’re going to get good at it.
Josh Hadley 00:39:30  I love that. What a great summary. I think you like you ran down that list. And I think every single one of those things, we could dive that much deeper and pull up a that could be a deep dive into how do you use ChatGPT to be the most efficient.
Josh Hadley 00:39:44  Right. How are you using Claude and Gemini 2.5? Right. So I love that. Now, Jo, what do you feel like as you’ve consulted with a lot of different e-commerce brands? What do you think is the lowest hanging fruit? Like, give me like three things that it’s like, guys, these are the things you need to implement like today into your business that you know also like doesn’t take, you know, somebody full time effort to also create it or to manage it or things like that. What do you think? Like we’ve got the the people listening to this are just like me. We’re cat. We’re we’re strapped for time. Right? We maybe have like an hour a week, like we’re just we’re packed to the gills already. So if I’m listening to this and I’m like, I’m kind of already overwhelmed, it’s like, oh, man. Like I’m just falling further behind. What do I actually do here? What are some quick wins that you think for an e-commerce brand? Start doing this.
Josh Hadley 00:40:44  You can do this today. It will immediately provide value to your business. What are some of those things you would recommend?
Jo Lambadjieva 00:40:51  Sure. I’d say immediate use is like re optimize your, images and your A+ if you’re an Amazon seller and just generally create, slate, let’s say social media content. with AI, you know, again, Gemini 2.5 is a great tool to use to do that. especially if you are cash strapped again. here I’d say is, you know, like, ideally you want a creative mind to, like, work with AI to essentially help you create visually appealing. you know, I think AI is a tool. And if you don’t know what you want and you don’t know what looks good, you are going to get exactly that, right? So it’s not going to make you all of a sudden a designer. so ideally you want to work with someone who uses a tool to get you to like, a really nice design. But if you really can’t afford that, you can still get like probably much better versions of your images with like, models, like in different Friend settings, seasonal, etc. and this is like, this is such a low hanging fruit and you can optimize you can a B test.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:42:12  I think the real value is like the speed with which you can iterate and figure out, okay, what works. And you know, you can iterate whether this type of model is the right or whether it is this type of setting, or is this type of color scheme. And you can change this like, you know, every couple of weeks, see how it performs and then optimize, optimize like, you know, you can create yourself a pretty extensive a B testing framework. And based on that, change your images. the second thing is obviously your if you haven’t used AI for product listing optimization, that’s again, no brainer. But don’t just, you know, go to a custom GPT with others like product listing optimization and do this. I mean you can but again just go back to what we talked about like know your customer, know thy die. Customer. So the point is, build yourself a solid ICP. Figure out what is it in these reviews and use AI to analyze your reviews.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:43:13  And then from that data, build an ICP and then using that, optimize your listings. Again, it’s it goes back to knowing what to put in the listings and maybe even starting to optimize a little bit for Rufus. But the point is, AI is your friend for that. third, use it internally. Like figure out like small wins in your internal operations. So, like, you know, if you don’t have if you have a team and you’re not using an AI like transcriber, like, what are you waiting for? I mean, this is a no brainer because with an AI transcriber, you can kind of automate things like, you know, any follow up actions can be automated through like make or zap your name or whatever, and then can go immediately into your project management system or in your slack, or just can be emailed if you’re not even that techie. But the point is, you know, doing small things to improve the operational like, efficiency of your team would probably make a lot of a lot of sense.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:44:19  You know, there is it’s not just about an AI transcriber. It’s about okay. So my team, for example, is is always asking me, where is this? Where is that? Like, you know, use a custom GPUs on a cloud project to, like, feed all of your, SOPs and like, in, like, kind of like, information about your operations. Then whenever they have a question, they don’t come to you, they go to the custom GPT. And so that is probably going to save you time, make them more efficient. So yeah, just think about this kind of like little little elements where it. It will just save time, and time is money. And so it doesn’t have to be like a really complex AI execution. It can be like a small little thing, but it will, over time compound in a lot of time saved.
Josh Hadley 00:45:15  Love that. Jo, as you talked about that, there was one thing that I think, like we could easily implement in our own team today that I think is like just very easy on the node of like having Claude projects or even a custom GPT where we upload all of our SOPs that we already have documented and we just upload, you know, download everything is PDFs and make sure it’s all detailed out, and then we upload them in there and then we say, hey, when you’re having an issue on Amazon, right? And you don’t know how to like what, how do we get the the seller support that we need to resolve this issue? Ideally you already have all of your SOPs laid out so that any team member that needs to go execute, that just chats with the bot.
Josh Hadley 00:46:03  They get their their idea. They don’t have to spend, you know, an hour trying to sift through all of the SOP documents to actually try to find what they’re looking for, and then they actually can go execute on that. So what the way I see this happening, and then again, you could do that for HR policies. You could do that for ranking optimizations for PPC, SOPs, etc., right. For your entire team to be able to do that. So custom GPT. I feel like are are the best analogy I could use for those is like there are many interns, right? Imagine you had all these little interns. You’re like, you’re not going to give the decision making to these interns, but you’re going to say, hey, can you go find this info for me? Yes, I can. Here you go. Do what it do with it, what you want. that is the best analogy I can use to say, like, that’s the way people should be using AI right now, which goes back to what we originally talked about was like, do you really want $100 million brand with just one person and a bunch of agents like I truly do? See, the power is actually like, can you have ten, maybe 20 really, really solid leaders? And then they just have a bunch of AI interns underneath them that are executing, doing things, but like it’s being overseen by human intelligence.
Josh Hadley 00:47:29  There is something about the human intelligence that I, I don’t think AI will that humans aren’t going extinct. That’s not my prediction. I think humans will still be able to out innovate AI in general, but I do see it as like see them as an intern to ten x. Your productivity. And what we do know is in the business world, things change quickly. And so the the businesses that are able to make decisions more quickly. The businesses that are able to adapt more quickly are going to be the ones that win. The businesses that come out with products, new products more quickly. Those are the those are the businesses that win. So I would encourage those that are listening to see this as AI should help you make decisions faster, and it’s speed to decision making. Alex Hermosa has a fantastic frame and mindset. Here there are two decisions. for almost every decision, there are irreversible decisions, right? Where it’s like, if you make this decision, unrolling this decision is a whole ball of wax and is figuratively either impossible or, there’s some serious consequences with it.
Josh Hadley 00:48:45  Most decisions are not those type of decisions that are irreversible. Most of them are not. But probably 90% of the decisions, if not 95% of the decisions you make every day. They are reversible decisions. If you go down this path and you’re like, I’m going to change my main image, I think it could be better. Okay. Is that an irreversible or a reversible decision? It’s a reversible decision. If you test it out and it doesn’t work okay. Worst case scenario, you change it back. Yeah. And so instead of spending one month or one week or whatever it is trying to perfect and refine that. Most businesses live on the hey, can you get this done by the end of the week? Hey, can you get this done by the end of the month? That’s what most businesses operate in. What if you could change that to say, can you get this done, in the next hour? Well, with AI, I can. Yeah, I can have a new image and I can get it up on Amazon in the next hour.
Josh Hadley 00:49:43  The brands that can operate that way are going to crush the competition. So I think it is a speed of execution, knowing that there are a lot of reversible decisions that you can make that allow you to just operate at speed, break things and then repair them as fast as they break. And that’s how you just continue to build and grow.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:50:04  Fail fast.
Josh Hadley 00:50:07  Love it. Jo, is there anything else? I know we’ve went down so many rabbit holes. Anything else that you feel like we have not conveyed to our listeners that you wanted to convey today?
Jo Lambadjieva 00:50:18  I think I think one thing that, like, keeps coming from a lot of conversations, is everyone feels really overwhelmed by AI, and I get it. Like, you know, again, I get overwhelmed by AI very, very often because it is just it’s moving so fast. But my message is, don’t be the rabbit in the headlights, like, you know, or the deer in the headlights, basically the animal in the headlights. Like, you know, don’t just be like, okay, there’s going to be that one day in four weeks.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:50:53  Two months. Like half a year that I’m going to start doing AI. It’s not going to help. I just start small every day, like ten minutes a day. Just read one article. Like what? One YouTube? Two video. Like do one prompt. Whatever it is, it’s going to compound. There is no better time to start, like with doing something with AI than right now, today. And so the longer you protect it and you wait for this perfect moment when AI is going to stop and slow down and you’re just going to finally catch on, because that’s another thing that people say to me. But like, what’s the point of like, starting now when, you know, at some point, all of this information is going to catch on and da da da da da da. And then I’m going to start, it’s like, no, it’s not going to catch on. It’s just going to keep going faster and faster. And the learning curve will be steeper and steeper. So just start experimenting.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:51:51  My, my kind of like, general advice for everyone is start with AI. Like, if you have a problem, start with AI. Like, you know, just ask AI, how do I do this? Or how do I approach it? Like, you know, another very cool hack that I can really recommend to people is if you don’t have the ChatGPT app, install it on your phone, just do it and like go on a walk and switch on the voice, mode. On that. Just don’t type. Just start chatting with the AI and just say like, you know, this is what this is my conundrum. This is what I’m trying to figure out. like, ask me some questions and let’s figure it out together. It’s amazing what happens when you don’t have to actually type, and when you’re not in front of a computer and you’re just walking and you’re chatting with something, and you go through like a process of questions and answers and you get some new ideas. So I use a lot ChatGPT as a brainstorm body.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:52:47  And so again, like, you know, it’s not a high tech thing. There isn’t like a really big learning curve. You just chat to something, but you start learning and you start getting new ideas about, okay, so maybe I can use this in this way or that way, or maybe this is how it’s going to solve my problem. So just yes, I would start with AI.
Outro 00:53:07  I love that. I love that last recommendation.
Josh Hadley 00:53:11  Go on a walk. Turn on the voice feature and just have a conversation. good information leads to good inspiration. And so if you want to be inspired, if you want to be enlightened, you want good ideas to come to your mind. Again, ChatGPT is not the source of all truth, but it is something that can enlighten your mind and give you thoughts that you may not have considered. And then you and your human intelligence, and in your soul you’ll be able to know and discern whether that’s good or right or whether that fits your situation or it doesn’t.
Josh Hadley 00:53:44  So I love that recommendation there, Jo. Jo, as we wrap things up here, I’d love to leave our audience with three actionable takeaways. So here are the three actionable takeaways that I noted. You let me know if I’m missing something. So action item number one, piggybacking off of what Jo just said, everything that you listen to today is definitely it’s a lot like it is a lot. This could be somebody’s full time job in your business, executing on a lot of different AI strategies for you, whether you have the funds or you don’t. For that, the most important thing that you could do today is to just get started. Like Jo said, do one thing. Create one prompt right. Create a master prompt that you could then share with your team. Try to create one custom GPT right and it is the compound effect. read Jo’s newsletter, read other AI newsletters like Learn Something New and it is those like just daily actions that like spend ten minutes. If you can block ten minutes a day just to dabble in it a little bit.
Josh Hadley 00:54:48  Those will compound, and I promise you, even as little as ten minutes a day, you will still be on the cutting edge of AI as it begins to advance over the next year or two for e-commerce. So that’s action. Item number one is like do something ten minutes a day in the AI space. Action item number two is I would recommend people like prepare their brand for the AI agent commerce world that is coming, which means one of the most important things that you can do is like actually see your brand as like a true brand. Those that just built their brand up on Amazon, and you’re just kind of like arbitrage traffic that’s on Amazon and keywords that’s going to the wayside. Like you’re going to be very irrelevant. I know for sure, very confidently, a decade from now, your brand is not relevant if you’ve just been arbitrage in keywords on Amazon. So what does that mean? You guys start taking it seriously. Do you have actually have a product that meets the needs of people? And if you do, then go share that information on Reddit.
Josh Hadley 00:55:52  Go share that information on PR platforms, on the BuzzFeed’s of the world, on the Forbes’s of the world, and get the information about your product and how it meets the needs of others out there into the world, so that the AI agents can actually find you. So that’s action item number two. My third and final action item here is for people to begin implementing these basic AI tactics into their e-commerce business. So this would be AI listing optimization using Gemini 2.5 Nano banana. You could also use it for use cloud for AI copywriting, right? To ensure that you are serving up Rufus and Cosmo with everything that they need in order to make sure that that meets your you’re hitting all the key points that need to be delivered so that the AI agents again will pick you up and then not last but not least, but like implement some AI workflows into your business. So of all of those options. Like just take a few of them and do something every day. One small action per day out of these action items will go a long way.
Josh Hadley 00:57:02  So Jo, is there anything else you think I missed here that you think people need to be? I think that’s a pretty good.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:57:09  Yeah, I think that’s fine. That’s enough. Start with us.
Josh Hadley 00:57:12  It’s probably more than three action items already, but.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:57:16  Yeah. Absolutely.
Outro 00:57:18  And Jo, I love this. It’s been a fantastic conversation.
Josh Hadley 00:57:21  I love to ask every guest the following three questions. So number one, what’s been the most influential book that you’ve read and why?
Jo Lambadjieva 00:57:30  I it’s really difficult, this question, you know, it’s very difficult for me to answer. There’s so many books. One that came immediately to mind is called Siddhartha by Hermann Hessen. it’s a very tiny book, but it’s very focused on spirituality and on. Yeah, basically being in the present moment and you know why we are here on Earth. And so for me, that has been a very influential.
Josh Hadley 00:57:57  Awesome, I love it. That’s a new book recommendation I love that. question number two. This is definitely within your wheelhouse.
Josh Hadley 00:58:05  What’s your favorite AI tool that you’ve been using and how have you been using it?
Jo Lambadjieva 00:58:10  yeah. Again, difficult to answer, but I think Claude, although not flashy, has been so far one of the tools that I’ve used the most in my in my AI career. just because I feel that one like, it just it writes in a really amazing way. And then two is because I think the way it the way things or the way like sort of works is just. Yeah, it’s just a slightly different and more interesting approach than I find sometimes with ChatGPT. So I would definitely recommend people to test it.
Josh Hadley 00:58:47  Awesome. All right. Final question. Who are the people in the e-commerce space that you would recommend? Other people should follow if they’re not currently aware of them.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:58:57  This is again another tough question because there is there is so many great minds in this space. You know, I really read Jon Derkits newsletter. I think that’s a fantastic newsletter to read. And another one is Kevin King’s newsletter.
Jo Lambadjieva 00:59:14  These are two great resources. Tools newsletter, which is also AI for e-commerce, is fantastic as well. It just has a slightly different angle, which is, you know, very focused on like practical use cases and tools. But again, she’s just generally a great, AI mind in the e-commerce space. And then we have and I’d say like one person that I feel is is again, like putting a lot of, thought leadership around is wanna put you, and her and Andrew, Belle and Danny obviously wrote the, Rufus blueprint. And they have been really focused on dissecting the the whole sort of like how Rufus works. So I think following those three and just, like, checking out their work again, really, really, really great resource in terms of understanding more the, I guess, the Amazon sphere of kind of e-commerce and AI.
Josh Hadley 01:00:12  Those are fantastic recommendations. I would highly recommend everybody follow those individuals if you’re not already. There are lots of great newsletters, as well. So Jo, this has been a pleasure.
Josh Hadley 01:00:24  If people want to learn more about you or even your agency, help install some of these AI tools into their business or follow your newsletter. Share people, share with people all the good details here.
Jo Lambadjieva 01:00:38  Sure the easiest way to get in touch with me is you can connect with me on LinkedIn. you can send me an email on Jo at Amazing Wave Digital, and you can obviously subscribe to my newsletter, which I will share with you the link because it’s, as long as, domain name or it’s actually I bought a short, better one. Hold on. It’s the the AI for e-commerce newsletter. Com. Really good. Those are the good choice. Yes. Oh. So. Yeah. All right. Please get in touch.
Josh Hadley 01:01:14  I love it. And we’ll drop those links into the show notes as well, so that people can subscribe and follow you as well. Jo. But this has been awesome. Thank you for your time today, Jo.
Jo Lambadjieva 01:01:23  Thanks for having me, Jo.
Intro 01:01:24  Thank you for listening.
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