When shopping stops being a place

For years, online shopping followed a fixed path. Search bar, product grid, filters, checkout. The interface barely changed, even as everything else on the internet did. That path is now breaking. Monday 12 January, 2026, JD Sports Fashion plc (JD Group) became one of the first large retailers to let US customers search and buy sneakers directly inside AI chatbots, including ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Google Gemini. No website visit. No app. Just a conversation that ends with a payment. Basically, a customer can chat with an AI bot, say “add these shoes to my cart,” and complete a purchase in…

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