--- title: Loops' AI Rebuilds Ecommerce Site Search So Shoppers Can Describe What They Want description: Loops' AI lets shoppers describe what they want instead of typing keywords. The company has raised a $3.5M seed round from a16z speedrun and NTT Docomo. author: Darie Nani (Editor-in-Chief) date: 2026-10-12T11:36:05.078Z updated: 2026-10-12T11:36:05.091Z canonical: https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/ecommerce-site-search-loops image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/loops-ari-nazir-yusuf-bahadir.webp categories: Artificial Intelligence, Startups content_type: Spotlight region: San Francisco publication: Sovereign Magazine about: - type: Organization name: Loops description: Loops is a San Francisco-based AI company that runs search and shopping help on retailers' websites. Its platform brings AI search, a shopping assistant, marketplace support, product data enrichment and virtual try-on into one system built on the retailer's catalog, and it works with more than 70 retailers and brands, including A101 and Mavi. It raised a $3.5 million seed round in October 2026. url: https://loopsai.com/ industry: Artificial Intelligence --- Loops, a San Francisco company whose AI runs search and shopping help on retailers' websites, has raised a $3.5 million seed round from a16z speedrun, NTT Docomo, Connecticut Innovations, Alumni Ventures and Monday Capital. Loops joined a16z speedrun, Andreessen Horowitz's accelerator for early-stage companies, in December 2025. More than 70 retailers and brands use Loops or are piloting it, and its software has handled millions of shopper interactions. The company says 64% of its pilots have turned into paying contracts. Its customers include A101, one of Turkey's largest discount supermarket chains, and the Istanbul-based denim brand Mavi, which sells in more than 30 countries. Smaller online stores can install Loops as a Shopify app, priced from $25 to $200 a month. ## Keyword Search and Filters in Ecommerce Site Search Most ecommerce site search still works on keywords and filters. A shopper types a product name or narrows a list by size, color and price, and the results depend on how the retailer has labeled its catalog. A shopper with a question has to contact customer service separately and wait for a reply. The Baymard Institute, which tests the usability of shopping sites, rated the search on [56% of the 344 US and European sites in its 2026 benchmark](https://baymard.com/blog/ecommerce-search-report-and-benchmark) as mediocre or worse. ![From left, Loops founders Ari Nazir, İlker Selim Zorluoğlu and Yusuf Bahadir](https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/loops-founders-nazir-zorluoglu-bahadir.webp) *Photo: Loops* Ari Nazir, Loops' chief executive, and İlker Selim Zorluoğlu, its president, were in Bali when Zorluoğlu tried to buy a gift online for his two-year-old daughter. He sent the retailer a question, waited hours for an answer and never bought the gift. Many shoppers were already [asking AI chatbots for products in full sentences](https://www.sovereignmagazine.com/article/ai-shopping-discovery-brands-bcg), and Nazir built the first prototype of Loops over a weekend to let them do the same on a store's own site. The software now lets shoppers describe what they want the way they would to a friend or to ChatGPT, and finds matching products without the shopper needing the right keyword or knowing how the retailer sorts its catalog. ## Separate AI Tools for Search, Support and Product Data > "The biggest mistake we see is treating AI as a collection of features. A retailer does not need five different AI products that each understand one slice of the customer. It needs one system that understands the catalog, the business and what the shopper is trying to do." > — İlker Selim Zorluoğlu, President and Co-Founder of Loops Retailers tend to add AI one task at a time, with one product for search, another to answer shopper questions, another to write product descriptions and another for virtual try-on. Each tool sees only its own part of the shopper's visit, and the retailer has to connect them. Loops runs all of these on the same product data, business context and record of the shopper's visit. Cleaner catalog data improves search results, search tells the shopping assistant what the shopper is looking for, and the questions shoppers ask show where product information is weak. ## Loops' Shopping Assistant, Product Enrichment and Virtual Try-On When shoppers have a question, Loops' shopping assistant answers it on the spot and helps them choose. The same assistant handles customer service conversations across every channel the retailer connects. A separate marketplace assistant answers questions and handles support for brands selling on online marketplaces. Product enrichment rewrites descriptions, attributes and other catalog data until every product is fully described for both shoppers and AI systems, which is what allows the search and the assistant to give answers a retailer can rely on. Virtual try-on and sizing tools let shoppers see a product on themselves before they buy, which Loops says gives buyers more confidence and cuts returns. ## Loops' Results at A101 and Mavi A101, founded in Istanbul in 2008, has stores in all 81 of Turkey's provinces. It uses Loops to help customers find their way around its catalog and to assist them up to the point of purchase. In a comparison Loops has published, sessions in which shoppers used the platform showed about 83% higher purchase conversion than a comparison group. The company notes that the figure comes from observation rather than a randomized test. ![Mavi's Loops style assistant answering a request for a linen shirt for a picnic](https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/loops-mavi-ai-search.webp) *Photo: Loops* Mavi uses Loops for search and shopping help, and its customers can look for clothes by style, occasion or fit. On Mavi's site, a shopper can ask the style assistant for a linen shirt for a picnic and then ask what to wear with the one they choose. "AI is changing the interface between companies and their customers, but the lasting platforms will be the ones that can make it work reliably inside real businesses," said Fareed Mosavat, investment partner at a16z speedrun. "Loops is starting in commerce, where the link between a better AI experience and business value is unusually clear. Its pilot conversion and early customer expansion show brands want a platform that can own more of that journey." ## Plans for the Seed Funding Loops will spend the funding on product development, on setting the platform up for more customers, and on international expansion. After commerce, it plans to build AI systems for financial services and energy, starting in each industry with one specific problem, working closely with customers to learn how the industry operates, and turning the tasks that come up again and again into software. It is also developing small language models for tasks where specialist knowledge, or limits on how a model can be deployed, make a smaller, focused model the better choice. **About Loops** Loops is a San Francisco-based AI company that runs search and shopping help on retailers' websites. Its platform brings AI search, a shopping assistant, marketplace support, product data enrichment and virtual try-on into one system built on the retailer's catalog, and it works with more than 70 retailers and brands, including A101 and Mavi. It raised a $3.5 million seed round in October 2026. [Website](https://loopsai.com/) ## FAQ **Q: What is ecommerce site search?** It is the search box on an online store, which shoppers use to find products in that store's catalog. Most site search matches keywords and lets shoppers narrow the results with filters such as size, color and price. AI search such as Loops' lets shoppers describe what they want in plain language instead. **Q: What are AI shopping assistants?** They are chat tools on a retailer's website that answer shoppers' questions about products, recommend items and help with decisions such as size or what to wear together. Loops' assistant runs on the same product data as its search and also handles customer service conversations across the retailer's channels. **Q: Which retailers use Loops?** More than 70 retailers and brands use Loops or are piloting it, including the Turkish supermarket chain A101 and the denim brand Mavi. Smaller online stores can add it through Shopify. **Q: Who invested in Loops' seed round?** a16z speedrun, NTT Docomo, Connecticut Innovations, Alumni Ventures and Monday Capital invested in the $3.5 million round. a16z speedrun is Andreessen Horowitz's accelerator for early-stage companies, which Loops joined in December 2025.