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Meesho, Flipkart, Amazon India and Myntra lean on AI to win Bharat shoppers in the 2026 festive sales
80 per cent of shoppers want an AI shopping assistant this festive season, per InMobi, as 180-185 million Indians are expected to shop online. Meesho, Flipkart, Amazon India and Myntra are using AI for trend spotting, personalisation, regional discovery and last-mile delivery.
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The numbers
Figures from ET BrandEquity
| Meesho TrendPulse daily search queries analysed: | 400 million |
|---|---|
| Emerging shopping trends identified daily by TrendPulse: | 65 |
| Meesho orders from AI-driven personalised feeds: | over 75 per cent |
| Meesho last-mile misroutes reduction: | more than 50 per cent |
| Chorus customer queries resolved: | 62 per cent |
| Myntra apparel portfolio covered by size-and-fit intelligence: | 85 per cent |
Why it matters for the brand
Demand for AI shopping assistants, personalised feeds, size-and-fit intelligence and last-mile routing is shaping up as a festive-season battleground, which makes startups with proven tools in those areas candidates for partnership or acquisition by brands and platforms that lack in-house capability.
What to track next
- Platform-reported festive-season order growth and new-shopper counts against the 180-185 million online-shopper expectation
- Disclosed assistant usage or conversion figures, or their absence, from Flipkart, Amazon India and Myntra
- Return rates and last-mile misroute data that confirm or contradict the claimed gains
- Meesho's next results or filings showing whether the feed-driven share of orders (over 75%) holds or grows
- Any regulatory or consumer-complaint action over AI-driven recommendations, pricing or data use
Likely next moves
Our read of what comes next — analysis, not reported by the source.
- Meesho is likely to cite its AI-feed share of orders (over 75%) and the misroute reduction (more than 50%) as proof points in festive-season and investor messaging.
- Flipkart and Amazon India are likely to put conversational shopping assistants and vernacular, voice-led discovery at the centre of their festive campaigns to counter the Bharat-shopper pitch.
- Myntra may extend size-and-fit intelligence beyond the 85% of its apparel portfolio it covers now, and promote lower returns as a festive selling point.
- Ad-tech and mobile-marketing players such as InMobi are likely to keep publishing shopper-intent data and pitch AI-assistant ad formats to brands trying to reach festive buyers.
- Brands and sellers on these marketplaces will probably accept AI-ranked placement and bid for it, which lets platforms monetise the feeds through ad spend.
The counter-case
The case against this reading — not reported by the source.
The signal treats vendor-supplied and self-reported figures as proof that AI is winning Bharat shoppers, and none of the numbers show that. The headline stat, that 80% want an AI shopping assistant, comes from InMobi, an ad-tech firm that profits from AI-led commerce advertising. It measures stated preference, which routinely overstates real behaviour, and the sample, question wording and definition of 'AI assistant' are not given. Meesho's 'over 75% of orders' from AI-driven feeds is an attribution claim. If the feed is the default storefront, nearly every order passes through it, so the figure may show where shoppers browse, not what AI added. The 50% cut in last-mile misroutes comes with no baseline, no time period and no sign of any effect on delivery success or cost. Myntra's 85% is coverage of the apparel portfolio, not an outcome: no impact on returns, conversion or fit-related complaints is cited. The 180-185 million festive shoppers is a forecast with no named source or method. Bundling four very different platforms under 'win Bharat shoppers' implies a competitive outcome that nothing here demonstrates. Every platform claims AI, so it may be table stakes rather than a differentiator, and the data would not reveal a winner either way.
The source
Filed
First seen