Empathy targets the search and discovery layer of large e-commerce operations. Its Commerce Search product covers traditional keyword search and merchandising — the controls a retailer needs to shape which products appear and in what order — while its AI Search product adds shopper-intent understanding, related tags, next queries, related prompts, AI spell check and AI carousels on top. Underlying all of it is a unified index that lets keyword and AI-driven search operate as one system rather than two competing stacks.
The differentiator Empathy pushes hardest is ownership. Rather than a hosted black box, the platform is delivered as self-managed components that can run in-place within a customer's own cloud infrastructure, using privately hosted open-source models. The company frames this around three ideas: privacy, because shopper data does not leave the retailer's environment; factual accuracy, with published work on reducing hallucination in generative search; and explainability, so merchandisers can see why a result surfaced. Empathy also publishes research on the open-source models underpinning this, such as GLiNER-based NER work for retail and grocery catalogues.
On top of search, Empathy has moved into conversational discovery with AI Mode — a natural-language search experience with generated prompts aligned to brand voice, plus conversational analytics so teams can see how shoppers use it. Spaces by Empathy extends the same agentic AI beyond retail. The platform integrates natively with Adobe Commerce and VTEX, and serves verticals including grocery, pharmacy, fashion, beauty, electronics and wholesale, with customers reported as Kroger, Inditex and Carrefour and more than 3,000 brands worldwide. Pricing is not published; interested retailers contact the company.
