Despite the massive rise of e-commerce, physical stores remain the backbone of retail, capturing roughly 80% of total sales according to Deloitte (1). Consumers still want to touch products, try them on, and take them home immediately. Yet, physical stores suffer from a glaring disconnect as they lack the context, data, and real-time personalization that make online shopping so effective.
As retailers turn to AI/ML and advanced algorithms to fix this gap, a new wave of AI-powered shopping assistants is taking center stage. But these AI models are currently limited because they are blind to the physical world. An AI assistant can predict what a shopper might want, but without real-world physical context, it cannot know where they are standing in an aisle, when they are looking at a shelf, or what promotion will actually drive a real-time conversion.
LISNR powers the missing physical foundation for commerce intelligence using ultrasound. By utilizing the same device microphone that consumers are already using to speak with their AI assistants, LISNR establishes a link between the shopper and the physical store. With in-store context, AI-assisted data insights can be directly tied to consumers at the most relevant times.
With LISNR operating at the shelf level, brands and retailers no longer have to rely on digital promotions and hope they stick. Instead, they gain deterministic, hyper-precise context:
- Who just entered the store
- Where they are within a physical environment
- When they are engaged
- If they converted on an advertisement
By establishing LISNR as the physical foundation and powering it with AI-driven commerce intelligence, we can begin to understand the shopper’s full journey. SMBs and enterprise brands alike can build complex advertising architectures that rival e-commerce giants. Shoppers receive highly relevant in-store interactions, and advertisers can offer hyper-targeted deals exactly when consumers are most likely to convert.
LISNR also accomplishes this as an “as-needed” solution for consumers. LISNR’s privacy-first approach helps deliver precise shopper presence data to the merchant without tracking their location outside of the store. To read more about the future of compliance with location privacy, check out our article “The New Rules of Location Data”.
LISNR in Action
LISNR is actively making strides with its two products to turn this picture into reality. Powered by our Quest gamified loyalty platform, we are actively combining business data with precise location data from Radius to deliver forecasts, recommendations, and real-time location-aware promotions.
While the picture paints itself for in-store commerce, LISNR is pushing the boundary past just retail. Ultrasound as a link for physical context can be applied across a wide variety of industry verticals:
- In transit, a Radius connection can be used to streamline ticketing operations, optimize passenger services, and enable cross-promotional offers for local retail commerce.
- In finance, Radius can act as an authentication layer to reduce behavioral fraud and allow agents to execute in-store transactions.
- In live events, Radius can be used to enable frictionless entry, autonomous in-stadium commerce, and cross-promotional partner offerings that convert consumers in-stadium while driving your fans to your partners’ physical stores.
LISNR frequently partners with businesses that already operate their own AI models or loyalty systems. In these implementations, Radius functions as the plug-and-play “Sensory Layer”, supplying the high-fidelity, deterministic physical context that third-party systems natively lack. By giving your current platforms a direct line of communication to the physical world, LISNR ensures your business is highly optimized for today’s consumers and fully equipped for the impending agentic economy.
See how adding ultrasound to your tech stack can boost engagement today and prepare your business for tomorrow’s AI-driven commerce. Connect with Our Team
Sources: York, Adam. “Future-Proof Your Stores: Adapting Physical Spaces for a Digital-First World.” Deloitte US, 19 Nov. 2025, www.deloitte.com/us/en/industries/consumer/articles/revolution-evolution-of-retail-stores.html.