Algolia's Chief Ecosystem Officer to discuss How AI Agents shape shopping decisions at Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2026. Piyush Patel to present on autonomous shopping as Algolia showcases AI Retrieval Intelligence at booth #1003 in Orlando, October 19-22. October 15, 2026 SAN FRANCISCO, CA - October 15, 2026 - Algolia, a leading Retrieval Intelligence platform handling nearly two trillion searches a year, today announced that its Chief Ecosystem Officer, Piyush Patel, will speak at Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo(TM) 2026, taking place October 19-22 in Orlando, Florida... Algolia will also host demos and meetings at booth #1003 on how retrieval intelligence turns business data into trusted, measurable answers across every AI experience. Patel's session, "The Autonomous Shopper: How AI Agents Decide What Customers Buy", will examine how AI agents are changing product discovery as shoppers move beyond traditional search, and what brands can do now to prepare for autonomous shopping. Attendees will learn why trusted business data matters when AI agents initiate search and make shopping decisions for customers and how Algolia approaches AI retrieval to deliver product recommendations grounded in relevance, context, and business requirements. The conversation will explore how real brands are solving for accurate, relevant product discovery through AI experiences at scale. "The majority of shoppers now use AI for recommendations, forcing brands to consider how those systems understand their products and respond to customer needs," said Patel. "AI agents need access to accurate, relevant business information to support useful decisions. At Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo, we'll unpack how organizations can build that foundation while retaining control over the experiences they deliver." At booth experiences (Algolia booth #1003), will include demonstrations of how intelligent retrieval connects enterprise data to search, generative, and agentic experiences. Demos and conversations will focus on reducing fragmentation across AI applications through a shared retrieval layer, grounding AI responses in current business data, and integrating AI capabilities into existing architecture. Attendees who visit the booth can score Pokémon cards from Algolia's retro vending machine and spin for a chance to win a $400 Gold Charizard card. To schedule a demonstration or connect with Algolia in Orlando, visit: https://www.algolia.com/lp/event-gartner-NA-IT-Symposium-2026 About Algolia Algolia is the retrieval intelligence layer that turns intent into trusted, decision-grade outcomes. Powering nearly 2 trillion queries a year for over 18,000 customers with millisecond latency and 99.999% reliability, Algolia, Inc. is the recognized leader for Search and Product Discovery by top industry analyst firms. The Algolia platform turns a company's products, content, and business rules into data that humans, applications and AI agents can act upon. The result is trusted customer experiences with stronger conversions for measurable business impact. Learn more at www.algolia.com.

Algolia launches native Shopify B2B integration, bringing account-specific search & discovery to wholesale & retail. Account-specific catalogs, pricing and quantity rules now shape search results automatically, so every business buyer sees the right products at the right price, without custom development. Algolia, the Retrieval Intelligence platform that helps ecommerce teams turn every search into a sale, announced native support for Shopify B2B. Retailers, brands, wholesalers and distributors selling to business buyers on Shopify can now deliver search & product discovery that adapts to each customer, from the products and prices they see to how results are ranked, so buyers find the right items faster, reorder with less effort and spend more. When a business buyer signs in, Algolia search shows only the products their company is authorized to purchase, at the prices it has negotiated, with the quantity rules that govern each order. Merchants get this through the same Algolia integration that powers their consumer storefronts, with no separate search system or custom middleware to build or maintain. The launch comes as digital commerce becomes an increasingly important source of B2B growth. The global B2B ecommerce market is projected to reach $36 trillion in 2026, while Shopify reports that B2B gross merchandise value on its platform grew 96% during 2025. Yet B2B discovery remains considerably more complicated than consumer search. A wholesaler may serve hundreds of companies, each with different catalogs, contract prices, company locations, volume discounts and purchasing requirements. When search exposes an unauthorized product or displays a price that changes at checkout, the experience creates confusion, generates support requests and undermines buyer confidence. Piyush Patel, Chief Ecosystem Officer, Algolia said: "Complex B2B use cases have typically required lengthy custom builds. Working with Shopify, one of our top strategic enterprise partners, we can now bring the retrieval intelligence that thousands of Shopify customers rely on today to a much wider audience." One search experience, tailored to every business buyer When a buyer signs into a merchant's B2B portal and selects their account location, Algolia automatically adapts the products and commercial information presented in search: * Account-specific catalog visibility: Search results include only products published to the buyer's assigned company catalog. * Negotiated and account-specific pricing: Results display the price the buyer will pay at checkout, including fixed prices and percentage-based adjustments from standard pricing. * Quantity and volume rules: Minimum and maximum quantities, purchasing increments and available volume discounts appear during discovery, helping buyers make informed purchasing decisions earlier. Amanda Engelman, Director of Product, Collective & B2B, Shopify noted: "Business buyers want the convenience and speed they experience as consumers, while still receiving the pricing, products and purchasing terms specific to their company. Algolia brings its speed, relevance and scale to Shopify B2B, helping merchants deliver that experience across even their most complex catalogs." Helping retailers operate consumer and wholesale channels together Many retailers and brands sell directly to consumers while also serving wholesale accounts, franchisees, dealers, professional buyers or corporate customers. These businesses have traditionally relied on separate storefront technologies and duplicated search logic to support each audience. Algolia's native Shopify B2B support allows merchants to extend the speed and relevance of their consumer search experience to wholesale commerce while preserving the rules associated with each business account. Merchants can manage thousands of SKUs, multiple company locations and different pricing and catalog configurations without maintaining a separate B2B search stack.

Algolia has acquired Velou, a New York-based company that uses multimodal AI to extract context-rich product data from catalogue text and images. Financial terms were not disclosed. Velou serves more than 50 retail and premium brand enterprise customers. The acquisition adds a layer of product intelligence to Algolia's platform, which handles nearly two trillion searches annually for over 18,000 customers. Velou's technology automatically extracts specific product attributes against a curated retail taxonomy, improving search accuracy without manual tagging. UK sportswear retailer Get The Label added more than 190,000 product attributes over six months using Velou, and revenue from site search rose 60%. The six-person Velou team joins Algolia. Existing APIs and integrations remain unchanged, with enhanced intelligence operating underneath.