From Operations to Intelligence: Shaping the Future of Commerce at Webscale

As I look ahead to 2026, I feel both optimistic and grounded. Optimistic about what is coming next, and grounded because much of what I believed when I joined Webscale last year has been validated through execution.

Reflecting on 2025: Strategy That Still Holds

Last year I made the case that ecommerce demands more than infrastructure alone. It requires a platform that understands the operational realities of commerce, including performance under peak load, rapid iteration, deep observability, and expert support that extends well beyond reactive troubleshooting.

Those ideas continue to resonate because they reflect the reality merchants face every day.

• Commerce teams want fewer vendors and clearer accountability
• Performance, reliability, and scalability are directly tied to revenue and customer experience
• Observability is essential to understanding not just what is happening, but why
• Support must be proactive, specialized, and informed by real commerce context

Our work throughout 2025 focused on delivering against these truths. We continued to evolve the Webscale platform, strengthened our operational capabilities, and refined our support model to better serve complex commerce environments. The result was greater confidence from our customers and more consistent outcomes during both steady-state operations and high-impact moments.

Stronger Partnerships and a Growing Ecosystem

Another defining theme of 2025 was the strength of our partnerships.

Since I joined the team, I watched our relationships with ecommerce agencies, technology partners, and platform providers become deeper and more strategic. These partnerships moved beyond integration and into true collaboration, where alignment around merchant outcomes drove technical and operational decisions.

Our work alongside Shopware and leading ecommerce agencies highlighted what is possible when platform, infrastructure, and implementation expertise are aligned from the beginning. Together, we helped merchants move faster, reduce complexity, and operate with greater confidence at scale.

As I look toward 2026, we will continue to invest in these relationships while forging new ones. The commerce ecosystem continues to evolve, and I believe long-term success comes from building strong, trusted partnerships that grow alongside our customers.

Building on a Proven Foundation in 2026

Our plans for 2026 are a continuation of what has already proven to work.

We will keep investing in platform performance, reliability, observability, and support. These capabilities remain foundational, not optional. They enable everything else we deliver and ensure merchants can scale without introducing unnecessary risk.

At the same time, we are excited to expand what the Webscale platform can do by introducing new intelligence that helps commerce teams move from reacting to issues toward proactively shaping outcomes.

Entering the Next Phase of Commerce Intelligence

One of the most exciting areas of focus for 2026 is our move toward agentic commerce.

This work is centered on systems that do more than collect and display data. They help merchants understand customers, make better decisions, and take action with greater speed and confidence.

A Customer Data Platform, ready for Agentic AI

Our journey begins with a Customer Data Platform designed specifically for commerce.

This CDP unifies customer, behavioral, and operational data into a single, actionable foundation. Rather than existing as a passive data store, it becomes an active layer that connects infrastructure performance, customer experience, and business outcomes.

Intelligent and Adaptive Customer Segmentation

Building on this foundation, we will introduce more advanced customer segmentation capabilities.

Segmentation becomes dynamic and responsive to behavior and context, rather than relying solely on static rules. This enables more relevant personalization, more efficient campaigns, and reduced manual effort across marketing and merchandising teams.

The Shopping Assistant Experience

Our shopping assistant uses the foundation of our CDP to deliver conversational product discovery powered by live data and intent signals.

As shoppers interact, search, and explore, the assistant learns continuously from real-time behavior and expressed intent. It adapts dynamically, refining recommendations and guidance based on context rather than static rules or historical assumptions.

By grounding every interaction in live data and adaptive segmentation, the shopping assistant delivers more accurate, relevant results in real time. This reduces friction for shoppers, improves product discovery, and helps merchants increase conversion through precision rather than guesswork.

Alignment with the Unified Commerce Protocol (UCP)

These initiatives are being developed in alignment with the recently announced Unified Commerce Protocol. UCP represents a shift toward more integrated and interoperable commerce architectures, and I see our approach as a natural fit within that model.

This allows merchants to adopt new capabilities incrementally, without disruptive replatforming or architectural change.

Looking Ahead

What excites me most about 2026 is the clarity of direction paired with meaningful momentum.

The principles that guided us through 2025 remain sound. A commerce-first platform, strong partnerships, and operational excellence continue to deliver value for our customers and partners.

In 2026, we will build on that foundation by adding intelligence, automation, and new ways to help merchants compete and grow.

Let’s Build What’s Next Together

If you are a merchant evaluating how to simplify your commerce infrastructure, improve performance, or prepare for what comes next, I would love to talk.

If you are an ecommerce agency or technology partner looking to collaborate more deeply, align roadmaps, or explore new ways to deliver value to merchants, I am equally excited to connect.

Whether you are planning for growth, rethinking your architecture, or exploring what intelligent commerce can look like in practice, now is a great time to start the conversation.

Reach out to Webscale to learn more about our platform, our partnerships, and how we are shaping the future of commerce together.