Adapting to New Discovery Patterns: Engaging Consumers Through Social Media and AI Agents

Wine & Spirits online merchants have always depended on discovery, from in-store recommendations to enticing newsletters. But discovery has moved. Consumers no longer rely on SEO search results or expert guides; they now find their next favorite wine through social media feeds, short-form videos, and increasingly, AI engines.

For merchants, this shift is both a challenge and an opportunity. The challenge lies in visibility as traditional marketing funnels are breaking. The opportunity? To reinvent discovery by meeting consumers where they are and engaging them through interactive, conversational, and hyper-personalized experiences.

The New Rules of Discovery

The modern buyer journey looks nothing like it did five years ago. The rise of TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and now AI search assistants (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude…) has fragmented how people explore and learn about wines and spirits.

Younger generations are:

• Discovering through social media first, not Google.
• Expecting short, engaging content instead of long written descriptions.
• Trusting peers, influencers, and recommendations more than brand advertising.

Key takeaway: Discovery now happens through experience, not exposure.

The Pain Points Merchants Face

Wine & Spirits merchants find themselves caught in this transition with multiple constraints:

• Dropping SEO performance as AI replaces traditional search.
• Limited ad budgets, unable to compete with global retailers.
• Short attention spans make long product catalogs ineffective.
• Complexity of wine knowledge, hard to translate into social or conversational content.
• Lack of tech resources to adapt to AI-powered environments.

To stay relevant, merchants need to evolve from static sellers to interactive educators and digital hosts, bringing the in-store sommelier experience to every online touchpoint.

Understanding How Consumers Now Discover Wine

Today’s consumer path looks more like a web than a funnel. A single buyer might:

1. Watch a TikTok video about sustainable wine.
2. Ask ChatGPT for “the best organic rosé under $20.”
3. Visit a merchant website, scroll for 60 seconds, then leave.
4. See a retargeted ad for a wine pairing tool and click back.
5. Convert only when the experience feels accessible, engaging, human, and trustworthy.

This fluid, multi-touch journey rewards merchants who offer instant guidance and continuity across channels.

That’s where AI-driven engagement tools like sommelier.bot become essential.

The Strategic Shift: From Search to Conversation

When AI agents and social algorithms decide what consumers see, merchants must adapt their visibility strategy accordingly. Instead of relying on keyword ranking, they should focus on:

• Being contextually relevant in AI-driven recommendations.
• Creating content that engages emotion and curiosity “Which wine fits your mood tonight?”.
• Transforming websites into conversational experiences rather than static catalogs.
• Using past visits and orders to immediately contextualize the conversation, like a known customer would experience in a brick-and-mortar store.

Sommelier.bot bridges this gap by turning each merchant’s site into a digital conversation. It detects intent, asks relevant questions, and recommends wines in a natural flow — exactly how a human sommelier would guide a tasting.

The Role of Social Media: Short Stories, Big Impact

Social discovery thrives on brevity and authenticity. Merchants should stop thinking of social content as advertising and start treating it as micro-storytelling.

Actionable Tactics for Merchants:

• Show, don’t tell: Short clips of uncorking, pairing, or behind-the-scenes vineyard shots.
• Create “wine moments” content: “The best bottle for a quiet Thursday night.”
• Repurpose conversational AI insights, as the most common user questions should inspire social posts.
• Collaborate with micro-influencers aligned with your values, not just big audiences.

Pro tip: Use AI tools like sommelier.bot’s data insights to identify trending varietals or consumer questions. This informs not just your product recommendations but your content themes.

For a deeper dive, see our blog on attracting younger consumers with hyper-personalized wine experiences and our article on building customer trust online.

Why AI Agents Are Changing the Game

Soon, more than half of online wine discovery will happen through AI intermediaries, effectively virtual assistants that summarize, recommend, and decide which merchants users see.

That’s both a risk and a revolution. Merchants who aren’t “AI-discoverable” may never appear in these ecosystems. But those who integrate conversational frameworks early will thrive.

Sommelier.bot provides merchants with that AI advantage by:

• Structuring product data so it’s machine-readable and compatible with AI discovery.
• Providing instant interaction that mimics the “AI chat” experience users expect.
• Turning every visit into a guided conversation that builds trust and reduces bounce rate.
• Offering analytics dashboards that reveal what customers truly ask, think, and want.

This isn’t just AI for efficiency, it’s AI for visibility.

Practical Steps for Merchants to Adapt

To engage consumers across social and AI channels, merchants should:

1. Integrate conversational AI
   • Add a sommelier-style assistant to your site to guide visitors naturally.
   • Use it to capture leads and learn from every interaction.
2. Create short, high-value social content
   • Showcase your expertise visually: a 10-second pairing tip performs and reaches better than a lengthy article.
3. Unify your brand narrative
   • Keep tone and experience consistent across Instagram, your shop, and your chatbot.
4. Train your AI presence
   • Optimize product data for visibility in conversational searches.
   • Use AI tools (like Sommelier.bot’s AI labeling model) to make your wines easier to recommend by algorithms.
5. Leverage user intent analytics
   • Understand what customers are really asking for and adapt your content and inventory accordingly.

How sommelier.bot Is Helping Merchants Lead the Shift

Sommelier.bot is designed precisely for this new discovery landscape.

• AI sommelier widget: Recommends the right wines instantly from your inventory.
• AI tagging engine: Enriches every wine with structured attributes (style, sweetness, body, etc.), easily understandable by any wine customer, and coherent across inventories. This engine has been trained on millions of wines & spirits.
• Universal platform exposure: Lists your wines on a federated global discovery network.
• No heavy tech required: Integration takes up to a week, no in-house development needed. A single line code.

In short, it helps merchants:
✅ Engage consumers where they already are: on social and in AI conversations.
✅ Build brand trust through intelligent interaction.
✅ Stay visible in a rapidly changing digital ecosystem.

Staying Visible in the Age of AI Discovery

The next decade of wine commerce won’t be won by whoever shouts the loudest online, but by those who create the most relevant, trustworthy, and personal experiences.

SEO and ads will continue to have their place, but conversation, discovery, and trust will drive loyalty.

Wine & Spirits merchants who adapt early, by combining social storytelling with conversational AI, and will define the next era of digital wine engagement.

If you’re ready to future-proof your brand and engage customers where they discover wine today, visit sommelier.bot and request a demo. The next generation of discovery has already begun.