How AI Helped The Bear House Grow Its Conversions 5X

As AI moves from powering search and recommendations to making decisions on behalf of consumers, ecommerce is beginning to shift from product discovery to intent-led shopping. Instead of searching for a black shirt after comparing dozens of options, customers can now tell an AI agent where they are going and what they want to wear.

Explaining the premise behind agentic commerce, Piyush Shah, the cofounder of InMobi and Glance, said consumers no longer need to navigate every stage of the purchase journey. 

Glance, the consumer technology platform from InMobi Group, is betting on this shift through its AI shopping agent. The agent uses signals such as a consumer’s preferences, budget, context and appearance to recommend products, create complete looks and enable virtual try-ons.

The impact of this approach was highlighted at the seventh edition of Inc42’s The D2C & Retail Summit 2026, during a fireside chat titled ‘How Agentic Commerce Will Change The Way India Shops’. The discussion featured Shah, cofounder of InMobi and Glance; Harsh Somaiya, cofounder of The Bear House; and Vaibhav Vardhan, cofounder and CEO of Inc42.

Somaiya said The Bear House initially faced three common challenges associated with running a D2C fashion brand: improving conversions, increasing the time customers spend on its website and reducing product returns.

Before deploying Glance, customers typically spent 30-50 seconds on the website, selected a single product and checked out. The changes after deploying the AI agent included:

• Conversions: Increased 5X
• Time spent: More than tripled
• Shopping behaviour: Customers began purchasing complete looks rather than individual products
• Average order value: Rose from ₹2,000 to ₹3,500

Using Glance’s virtual try-on feature, The Bear House has reduced returns by 20%, Somaiya said.

For brands, the value extends beyond conversion and order value. The intent customers express while shopping can also help companies understand what consumers want to wear and inform future product decisions.

Shah said the shift would require brands to focus less on driving users to their websites and more on becoming the best answer when a customer expresses an intent. As AI removes layers of search, comparison and evaluation, brands that understand the reason behind a purchase could gain an advantage in the next phase of ecommerce.

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