Shoptalk 2025: Goldman Sachs Analyst Unveils Insights On AI, Video, Retail And Stock Picks

Goldman Sachs analyst Eric Sheridan attended the 2025 Shoptalk Conference in Las Vegas from March 25 to March 27.

Based on his conversations with companies and industry participants, the analyst shared his key takeaways across eCommerce, digital advertising, retail, and software:

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Search is evolving to meet rising customer expectations.
The future of eCommerce is conversational and personalized.
Video content is becoming critical from awareness to conversion.
AI is enabling a better brand experience.
Retail media is increasingly a differentiator.
The in-store environment remains an opportunity for retail media dollars ahead.
There are signs of stable demand for digital transformation but less visibility into the second quarter.

Sheridan’s internet picks:

Amazon.com Inc AMZN Buy with $255 price target
Alphabet Inc GOOGL Buy with $220 price target
Meta Platforms Inc META Buy with $765 price target) and
Pinterest, Inc PINS Buy with $47 price target

Retail top picks:

SharkNinja, Inc SN Buy, with a $133 price target
GAP Inc GAP Buy with a $34 price target and
Walmart Inc WMT Buy with $106 1price target.

Software picks:

Shopify Inc. SHOP Buy with a $150 price target and
Klaviyo, Inc. KVYO Buy with a $51 price target.

Google continues to play an essential role in online commerce. Google and YouTube are present in 2/3rd of journeys where consumers discover new brands, products, or retailers.

Google was aligned with this vision of the future of multimodal search and spoke to their focus on Google Lens, which now serves over 20 billion monthly queries. Text-based search remains normative, and generative AI products augment the experience.

Amazon is also experimenting with visual search with Amazon Lens and is pleased with the various ways shoppers engage with the product, which suggests that users are deriving value from it.

Amazon launched its AI shopping assistant, Rufus, in 2024.

Google launched a more conversational version of Google Shopping last October. Over 1 billion people shop across Google every day, and the company sees Google Shopping as an essential part of its broader commerce strategy.

Walmart noted an opportunity to enhance the customer experience by cross-functionally driving its retail media stream. This collaboration across retail media, data, marketing, and other customer experiences will drive profit while enabling a frictionless customer experience.

Sheridan expects Shopify to see traction in B2B due to the market’s legacy replacement cycle and relatively benign competitive backdrop.

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