4 proven AI search solutions for tariff management
At a glance:
- AI search solutions for tariff management help retailers maintain margins when costs spike
- Intelligent product discovery guides customers to available alternatives during disruptions
- Drag-and-drop tools save hours by instantly prioritizing high-margin products
- Enhanced self-service reduces support calls about tariff-impacted products
- Supply chain visibility builds customer trust during unpredictable delivery timelines
Over the past few weeks, I’ve met with some of our largest retail and manufacturing customers. While we discussed the obvious concerns about rising tariffs, what jumped out at me wasn’t just their worry about increasing costs – this total shift in how they think about serving their customers.
As one digital commerce leader said during our meeting, “In normal times, great digital experiences drive growth. And in these times, it’s showing us innovative ways to better understand our customer needs.”
Regular conversations with our customers have given me a front-row seat to how they use AI search solutions for tariff management to navigate economic turbulence. Here are the four most powerful ways I’ve seen our technology helping businesses not just survive but thrive amid economic uncertainty:
1. Helping customers find alternatives when prices spike
When tariffs kick in, your bestsellers can get a 25% cost increase overnight. Then you’ve got this horrible choice: eat the costs (goodbye margins) or raise prices and watch customers bail.
One of our multinational clients who manages 60+ domains explained it this way: “When tariffs affect certain products, we have to figure out whether we should still show those items on the first page of results. If we can’t ship certain products to China due to tariffs, showing them prominently creates a frustrating experience when customers discover they can’t purchase them.”
There’s a better way. AI search solutions for tariff management can intelligently show comparable products made in countries with lower tariffs when someone searches for affected items. This intelligent product discovery approach keeps sales moving even when prices are everywhere.
Companies like Amazon were considering breaking out tariff costs on their website, so it’s not unreasonable to add subtle badges highlighting “Fast Shipping” and “Best Value” to guide customers toward better options. You’re creating this tariff-resilient digital experience that protects your customer relationships and margins.
2. Easily prioritizing high-margin products
What happens when tariffs affect different parts of a catalog in unpredictable ways? Many merchandising teams spend hours manually adjusting search results based on which products should be recommended. Now imagine doing that at scale to maintain acceptable margins after tariff impacts.
We just rolled out Commerce Studio for precisely this reason. It’s built to be straightforward – you can just drag and drop products where you want them (boost the good ones, bury the ones getting killed by tariffs). At the same time, the hybrid search part (the combo of semantic + old-school keyword stuff) handles all the related suggestions automatically.
As one technical lead with over 40 million products in their catalog told us: “When users search for either partial or direct numbers, we have to decide what to show on the first set of results. We don’t want to display an entire first page where users see no ‘buy’ button and have to navigate to the second page to find sellable products in their domain due to tariff changes.”
With AI search solutions for tariff management, if merchandisers learn a product line is getting hit with a 15% tariff next week, they can reprioritize search results in minutes, not days.
What’s cool is you get the best of both worlds here – you can make precise merchandising decisions when you need to (like when tariffs hit), but the semantic search part automatically fills in all the gaps. You don’t have to choose between keyword matching OR understanding meaning – our hybrid search solutions do both.
When tariffs shift profit margins, making American-made items more profitable, merchandisers can quickly set new business rules to prioritize those products. The AI then intelligently manages thousands of related search queries, ensuring customers see the most relevant products without manually optimizing every search term.
3. Enhancing self-service online
With all these tariff pressures, retailers are scrambling to determine how to keep the customer experience decent. I’m hearing from clients that their customers are confused by all the product changes and price jumps, calling in with these super complex questions about what’s available, why prices changed, and what alternatives exist for stuff that suddenly costs 20% more.
So, how do AI search solutions for tariff management help here? For starters, your search needs to understand real human questions like “Jensen chair” or “cheap coffee table that ships fast.” This retail search experience during price changes completely transforms how people find stuff independently.
The impact is huge in two ways: First, customers can find answers themselves (like how Red Hat saw their self-solve rate jump 311% while support tickets dropped 7%). Second, when someone does need to talk to customer service, those agents have access to the same AI system with real-time catalog management solutions that give them all the product data at their fingertips.
One of our clients at Red Hat put it perfectly:
“A critical part of our customers’ experience is to find information when things break. Search is the front line for where people look. If they can find the right content, they’re generally happier. They’re more likely to renew their subscription.”
When you improve these self-service options, you’re creating a much better experience while ensuring your team has the info they need right when needed. It’s using tech to make humans better, not replace them.
4. Making supply chain disruptions transparent to customers
Tariffs are just the latest supply chain headache, causing delays and making customers mad when delivery dates change. We’ve had COVID, inflation… who knows what’s next. That’s why everyone’s talking about “future-proofing” so much lately.
I heard this interesting thing from another client about how tariffs pop up in weird places: “The folks who manage our free samples face an interesting tariff use case because we offer products for free that still might be impacted by tariffs. So that changes the nature of what free means.”
Here’s the simple version: when someone searches for products, they immediately see accurate info about what’s available. This supply chain visibility technology transforms how customers experience these disruptions.
For delayed stuff, the system automatically suggests alternatives that can arrive sooner, using AI-powered inventory visibility to ensure customers always find something that works. Plus, it syncs online info with what’s in stores, giving shoppers a complete picture no matter how they shop.
What’s fantastic is that now a customer can see if something backordered online might actually be sitting on a shelf at a store nearby, or if something running low in-store could be shipped straight to their house. The system pulls availability data from your entire network, giving customers real options instead of “sorry, out of stock!”
Instead of constantly apologizing for delays you can’t control, you’re helping customers find solutions before they get frustrated. When they trust the information about e-commerce tariff impact solutions, they’re way more likely to go through with their purchase.
Why AI search solutions for tariff management are essential, not nice-to-have
We’ve been doing this for 15+ years, and we’ve seen again and again how vital AI search solutions are during economic craziness, especially with tariff management.
The reason is simple: The economic complexity exceeds human capacity to manage manually. When product costs, availability, and shipping times constantly change, only AI search solutions for tariff management can process all these variables fast enough to create a decent customer experience.
And hey, we know you’re looking for ROI. Our customers report payback in 6 months or less.
Finding your right-now search capabilities
Here’s what we’re telling customers facing tariff pressures: Figure out which AI search capabilities you need right now. Don’t try to overhaul everything at once. A lot of our clients are getting quick wins with targeted features:
Several companies have added AI summaries as a self-service tool that gives customers the essential product info they need, even when catalogs change like crazy. They’re already seeing fewer product questions coming in after adding this feature.
Our brand new AI App Studio will also enable companies to build these interactive Q&A experiences about products, so customers can self-service for specific details, like “Will this dishwasher fit in my 32-inch cabinet?” or “Are these curtains affected by the new tariffs?”
These more advanced tools build on essential AI search solutions for tariff management like Neural Hybrid Search (that’s when you combine regular keyword search with actual understanding) and real-time product availability info. The trick is matching the right capabilities to your biggest tariff headaches.
Maybe you need to cut travel and put off renovating the office. But anything that directly touches revenue and customer experience? That’s where you should be doubling down right now.
That’s what we’re hearing consistently from our customers. When external stuff gets super complex, AI search solutions for tariff management become an essential connector between your business needs and customer experience.
If you’re dealing with similar challenges, I’d love to chat. Our team is helping companies across retail, manufacturing, and distribution create targeted strategies using AI search solutions to fight back against the specific ways tariffs are hitting their business.
Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from working with our customers through periods of chaos, it’s that while we can’t control external factors like tariffs or inflation, we can control how we respond to them.
Mike Carney is the VP of Client Success at Lucidworks. You can connect with Mike on LinkedIn.