The era of 20% email open rates is not the end game. AI enables 'uncomfortably specific' targeting in subject lines and content, which can dramatically boost engagement. This has the potential to bring open rates back towards the highly effective levels seen in email's early days.

Personalization has evolved beyond using a first name. AI platforms like Instant now generate completely unique emails for every shopper, dynamically altering subject lines, copy, images, and offers based on individual behavior and context.

As AI tools become ubiquitous, customer expectations will shift. Receiving an irrelevant ad or email will no longer be a minor annoyance but a signal that the brand is technologically inept. Personalization is evolving from a competitive advantage to a basic requirement for brand credibility.

Modern AI enables hyper-personalization where every email element—copy, images, discounts—is generated uniquely for each shopper based on real-time site behavior. This moves beyond simple segmentation to a one-to-one communication standard.

The evolution of personalization won't just be one-to-one marketing to a person, but marketing to their AI agent. Brands must learn how to provide data signals and recommendations that influence an AI's choices on behalf of its user, a paradigm shift from traditional consumer engagement models.

To achieve personalization efficiently, Samsung creates a few core email templates. They then use third-party tools like Movable Ink to dynamically insert content modules based on individual customer data, such as products owned or purchase propensity. This avoids massive versioning complexity.

While human personalization is key, the next evolution of commerce is preparing for AI buyer agents. These agents aren't influenced by button colors or emotional copy but by logic, data, and efficiency. E-commerce infrastructure must transform to sell effectively to both human and machine customers simultaneously.

AI agents can continuously experiment with variables like subject lines, send times, and offers for each individual user. This level of granular, ongoing A/B testing is impossible to manage manually, unlocking significant performance lifts that compound over time.

An AI agent drafted a sales email so personalized and context-rich—pulling data on a VC's portfolio companies, conference attendees, and competitors—that it was deemed superior to what any human could write. This capability stems from the agent's ability to process massive amounts of data instantly.