In partnership with
TODAY’S MAZE
Happy Tuesday! Apple is bringing Google’s Gemini models to Siri. This deal positions the assistant as a primary gatekeeper for shopping across billions of devices.
This shift suggests a future where users shop entirely within voice assistants. Will brands lose direct customer access as journeys move inside AI models?
In today’s MarketMaze focus:
Siri integrates Google Gemini
SCOTUS tariff refund ruling
JD Sports AI checkout
Global parcel volume surge
Seller registration shifts
+Handpicked recent news you need to know
LET’S ENTER THE MAZE!
- Artur Stańczuk, MarketMaze Founder
MAZE STORY
The Maze: Apple and Google confirmed a multi-year deal to integrate Gemini models into the core of Apple Intelligence. This partnership transforms Siri into a more capable interface for search and agentic commerce across 2 billion active devices.
The collaboration follows months of delays for the upgraded assistant as Apple searched for a partner to deliver on its 2024 artificial intelligence promises.
Alphabet recently surpassed Apple in market capitalization for the first time since 2019, emphasizing the influence of firms with massive cloud infrastructure and models.
Apple maintains its existing integration with OpenAI for complex queries while using Google’s technology as the primary underlying framework for its next-generation foundation models.
Why it matters: This deal consolidates AI authority among fewer platforms and creates a narrower path for brands to reach consumers directly. As Siri begins to resolve more shopping intents internally, retailers may see a decline in external site traffic as the purchase journey starts and ends within the voice assistant.
FROM OUR PARTNERS
Snippets that scale your voice
Save and insert standard intros, calendar links, and bios by voice so recurring emails and updates take seconds. Wispr Flow keeps your tone and speeds execution. Try Wispr Flow for founders.
MAZE STORY
The Maze: The Supreme Court is preparing to rule on the legality of national security tariffs, a high-stakes decision that could trigger billions in refunds to importers. While President Trump warns of fiscal ruin for the nation, Treasury officials maintain that the government can easily cover these mandatory costs.
Prediction markets like Polymarket currently show a 70% chance that the court strikes down the use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which has authorized numerous controversial trade levies.
President Trump argued on Truth Social that the total economic impact reaches trillions when accounting for the massive capital investments US companies were forced to make in order to avoid these costly trade duties.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Reuters that the federal agency maintains a calmer outlook and possesses more than enough liquidity to manage those refunds if the court eventually rules against the administration.
Why it matters: A ruling against the government would provide an immediate capital injection for brands and retailers hit hardest by recent trade wars. This pivotal decision defines the boundaries of executive power and shifts how D2C leaders calculate their long-term supply chain costs and risk profiles.
FROM OUR PARTNERS
Stop wasting ad spend. Start scaling profitably.
Discover your competitors' top-performing Facebook ads and replicate them using AI in minutes, not days. Increase your profits and scale ad spend with confidence. The library of 38+ million best ads from the top brands in the world, and you can see their every move. Try it for FREE for 14 days.
MAZE STORY
The Maze: JD Sports is launching a feature that allows shoppers to complete one-click purchases directly inside AI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini. This move transforms conversational discovery into a seamless transaction without requiring a visit to a traditional website.
The retailer utilizes the Agentic Commerce Suite from Stripe to manage secure payments and commercetools to sync real-time product inventory across AI-led shopping interactions.
This initiative targets North American shoppers first, leveraging the infrastructure gained through the recent acquisition of Hibbett Sports to lead the AI-driven commerce space in JD’s largest market.
As 30% of active users already trust AI tools for shopping, this integration helps JD Sports capture demand within agentic commerce flows that increasingly start outside of standard mobile apps.
Why it matters: Buying friction disappears when the checkout follows the consumer to their preferred platform instead of forcing a site visit. By embedding payments into LLMs, retailers turn casual AI inquiries into instant revenue while bypassing traditional search engine funnels.
DATA TREASURE
The Maze: E-commerce has become the parcel market. Most shipped boxes now exist because of online orders, not traditional mail. Scale keeps compounding.
In 2025, global B2C e-commerce parcels hit 121B, up 10% year over year.
E-commerce accounted for 63% of all parcels, up from 45% in 2020.
Roughly 60% of global e-commerce parcels originated from China.
Why it matters: Logistics is no longer support, it is strategy. Control of fulfillment and last mile shapes cost, speed, and trust. Marketplaces that manage this well gain structural power.
DATA TREASURE
The Maze: Regulation finally hit the seller layer. Chinese Amazon sellers rushed to change legal entities as reporting rules tightened. Compliance, not competition, triggered the shift.
In Nov 2025, about 780 sellers moved registration to Hong Kong, up from single digits earlier in 2024.
The surge followed new rules requiring quarterly reporting of seller revenue and identity.
Most movers earned under $1M annually, the group most exposed to margin shocks.
Why it matters: Cost advantages rooted in opacity are shrinking. This will not erase China’s supply edge, but it raises friction. For domestic sellers, parity improves. For marketplaces, compliance just got harder.
BRIEFING
🏬 Everything else in Ecommerce & Big Tech
🇺🇸 US Brands spent a record $1 billion on celebrity talent in 2025, seeking authentic human connections to differentiate themselves from AI-generated content.
🌍 Etsy integrated its seller inventory into Microsoft Copilot, allowing shoppers to discover and buy handmade goods directly within AI chat interfaces.
🇺🇸 Mid-Tier Retailers are being squeezed by the market as they struggle to compete with Walmart’s price leadership and Amazon’s logistics scale.
🇺🇸 Walmart and Wing scaled their drone delivery partnership to 270 stores, expanding from initial pilots into large-scale urban operations across major cities.
🌍 Honey lost affiliate access to 2,000 major retail partners, including Walmart, following the termination of its partnership with the Rakuten Advertising network.
SHARE THE MAZE
Your network thinks you’re as smart as the content you share. Share smarter stuff and help us grow. Win–win. Here’s what you get when friends join the Maze:
Here is your unique referral link to share with friends:
and link to the hub to check your progress.
THAT’S IT FOR TODAY!
You’re the reason our team spends hundreds of hours every week researching and writing this email. Please let us know what you thought of today’s email to help us create better emails for you.
What do you think of this issue?
If you enjoyed it please share it with a friend, or share it on LinkedIn and tag me (Artur Stańczuk), I’d love to engage and amplify!
If this was forwarded by a friend you can subscribe below for $0 👇
See you next time in the maze!
MarketMaze team
