eBay: Agentic AI Could Open New avenues for Online Shopping
Last year proved “transformative” for eBay as the company implemented artificial intelligence (AI) tools for its employees, sellers, and buyers, according to executives during the company’s fiscal quarter earnings call on Wednesday, February 26, 2025. The enhanced core AI platform enabled the roll out of its first proprietary large language models (LLMs) during 2024, as stated by eBay CEO Jamie Iannone.
“We leveraged our decades of eCommerce data to build our proprietary LLM models from scratch to accomplish specialized eCommerce tasks at greater levels of efficiency,” Iannone explained. “We also pre-trained leading open-source models on our dataset to improve their accuracy on specific eBay use cases. By the end of the year, we launched dozens of customer-facing features powered by LLMs across the buyer and seller experiences, search, payments, marketing and specific focus categories.”
New AI tools have contributed to enhanced productivity within eBay’s engineering and customer service departments. They also improved the platform’s search results. Sellers benefited from tools that generate product listings, enhance product images, and automate social media posting. Buyers benefited from tools to better shop and discover products, Iannone said.
In January 2025, eBay announced a collaboration with OpenAI’s Operator to direct users to eBay listings, according to a released presentation. Operator, described on OpenAI’s website, is an AI agent designed to use its own browser to perform tasks on the web for users.
“This agentic approach to commerce could create an entirely new channel for discovery and shopping online,” Iannone said during the call. “Although it’s early days, we anticipate this collaboration could expand the reach of our sellers, giving more buyers exposure to eBay’s unique and differentiated inventory.”
During 2024, eBay added payment methods – expanding Klarna’s buy now, pay later (BNPL) option to six more European countries following a successful launch in Germany, and a partnership with Riverty that allows buyers in Germany to pay using a monthly invoice, according to a Wednesday earnings release.
“In payments and financial services, we continue to focus on adding new and locally relevant ways to pay on eBay, to expand buyer choice, drive conversion and optimize our payment mix,” Iannone said.
Iannone commented on eBay’s acquisition of the online automotive transaction solution provider Caramel, stating the move will enable the company to better tap into the collectible car market by enhancing the level of trust for vehicle purchases on the platform, enabling online vehicle purchases in all 50 states, and simplifying the complexities of vehicle sales.
“We also expect an improved vehicle transaction experience to drive synergies within other categories as our average vehicle buyer also spends thousands of dollars annually on P&A [parts and accessories] and non-motor items across the eBay marketplace,” Iannone concluded.
