Retailers boost video & AI as visual commerce grows

Cloudinary has published a global retail survey on visual commerce trends, covering 539 retailers across 14 countries.

The findings suggest retailers are trying to meet a wide range of consumer demands at once, with no single priority dominating decision-making. Mobile shopping was cited by 43% of respondents as a top buyer trend, followed by high-volume video at 42%, social commerce at 39%, hyper-personalisation at 35%, sustainable production at 26% and omnichannel experiences at 25%.

That broad spread of priorities is driving heavier use of video, user-generated content and artificial intelligence in day-to-day operations. The survey suggests these tools are no longer treated as isolated experiments, but are being integrated into routine production, publishing and moderation work.

Video shift

One of the sharpest changes highlighted in the research is the growth in retailers' video libraries. Some 41% of those surveyed now host 1,000 videos or more, up from 8% in Cloudinary's 2024 video survey of eCommerce professionals.

A smaller group is operating at far greater scale. Six per cent of respondents fell into what Cloudinary described as "mega-hosts", with video libraries of 100,000 titles or more.

Most retailers expect that volume to keep rising, with 62% planning to deliver more video this year.

Respondents linked that investment to both commercial and brand benefits. Seven in 10 said video helps build brand trust and confidence, while 69% said it improves product credibility. A further 63% said it drives product purchases, 61% said it improves market awareness or search visibility, and 35% said it helps reduce returns.

Yet rising volume is also creating pressure on systems and staff. The biggest operational problem cited was the effect on site and app performance, identified by 45% of respondents.

Manual formatting for different devices and social channels followed at 42%. Resource demands around managing and searching for assets were cited by 40%, while 36% pointed to content delivery network bandwidth as a challenge.

Against that backdrop, 79% of retailers said they have adopted AI in video workflows. The figures suggest companies are using automation to manage expanding content libraries even as technical constraints persist.

Social and UGC

The survey also highlights the role of social platforms in retail distribution. Social media was named by 41% of respondents as the leading channel for retailers, while 39% said social commerce is among the top buyer trends shaping customer experience.

Video distribution on those channels is now widespread. Some 81% of retailers use social media platforms to deliver video content to consumers, ahead of websites at 71% and mobile apps at 64%.

Retailers are also opening their channels to more user-generated content in response to demand for authenticity. More than a third of respondents, or 37%, identified UGC as a top buyer trend, while 75% said they accept all types of UGC on their platforms.

That expansion has brought moderation and compliance into sharper focus. Among retailers already using AI, 44% said they apply it to video compliance and moderation.

The research also indicates that personalisation is closely tied to social activity. Some 42% of retailers said image and video personalisation leads directly to increased social sharing.

AI across workflows

Cloudinary's data suggests AI use has spread beyond a few narrow tasks. The survey found that 84% of retailers now use AI within general workflows, with adoption spread across 14 use cases within a 10-percentage-point range.

The most common use was creation and editing at 61%, including tasks such as background removal, canvas expansion and smart cropping. Workflow automation followed at 56%, referring to moving assets from production to publication without manual intervention. Copy generation ranked next at 50%.

This pattern suggests AI is being embedded across the asset pipeline rather than concentrated in one function. It also indicates retailers are using the technology for routine production tasks rather than limiting it to pilots or specialist teams.

The survey found that 71% of organisations plan to deploy AI concierges and digital stylists this year, making it the most widely cited next-generation digital experience among respondents.

The research was carried out by Researchscape International and included executives, IT staff and marketing professionals working in retail.

"The data is clear. Visual content is a primary driver of retail competitiveness, and the brands that manage it well are positioned to pull ahead of those that don't. Our survey shows that when retailers lack the right infrastructure, operational bottlenecks surface across multiple areas simultaneously. With 13 consumer trends competing for attention and the holiday season approaching, the ability to move from creative concept to flawless delivery, automatically and at scale, is what separates the brands that win the season from the ones that struggle through it," said Angie Geffen, senior vice president of marketing at Cloudinary.