Edgerunners
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Commerce AI / Shopify app

HOBO

AI-Powered Social Commerce & Customer Engagement Platform

Turns an online store into an interactive shopping experience where product discovery, personalized recommendations, customer-generated video, and conversational shopping come together.

Platform capabilities
15
Audiences served
3
UGC distribution channels
4
See how UGC worksDiscuss your store

Overview

A store that customers help build.

Initially developed as a Shopify-integrated application, HOBO connects product catalogs, storefront interactions, customer preferences, and shopping workflows to help merchants create more engaging experiences and turn customer participation into a valuable source of marketing content.

The platform combines AI shopping assistance, personalized product discovery, shareable wishlists, collaborative product bundles, and a short-form video community where customers can create user-generated content (UGC) for brands.

HOBO goes beyond conventional ecommerce personalization. It helps merchants build a community around their products, encourage customers to become content creators, and connect discovery, engagement, and purchase decisions in one integrated experience.

From static storefront to social shopping
  • Static product pages
  • Written reviews
  • Generic recommendations
  • Discover
  • Learn
  • Share
  • Contribute

Customers do more than browse and buy: they discover, learn, share, and contribute to the content and community that help brands grow.

The challenge

Attention is expensive. Authentic video is scarce.

Online retailers face increasing pressure to attract attention, build trust, and convert visitors into customers. Traditional product pages, written reviews, and static recommendations often provide limited context for products that require demonstration, comparison, or personalized guidance.

At the same time, short-form video has become an important format for product discovery and digital marketing. However, producing a continuous stream of authentic video content can be expensive and operationally demanding.

Many customers are willing to share their product experiences, but not on their personal social media accounts.

They may not want to publicly associate their profiles with a brand, which limits the supply of customer-generated content that merchants can use.

Other challenges include

  • Helping shoppers find products that match their needs and preferences.
  • Understanding customer interests across multiple storefront interactions.
  • Answering complex product questions before a purchase.
  • Generating authentic video content at scale.
  • Encouraging customers to return and participate in a brand community.
  • Connecting customer engagement with measurable ecommerce outcomes.
  • Making product discovery and marketing more relevant without overwhelming customers with generic recommendations.

HOBO addresses these challenges by connecting AI-driven shopping, customer-generated content, and social commerce into a unified platform.

The defining capability

Customer video, without the personal post.

Customers create product videos for the brand's own content ecosystem. Merchants review, reward, and reuse what they approve, building a library of authentic video with a lower barrier to participation.

  1. 01Create & submit
  2. 02Merchant review
  3. 03Reward
  4. 04Publish & reuse
  5. 05Measure

Approved content can reach

  • HOBO video feed
  • Product pages
  • Merchant social channels
  • Other supported marketing channels

Customers are informed how their content may be used, and reuse requires explicit usage permissions.

From question to checkout

Ask, compare, and buy in one conversation.

Shoppers can type or speak to an assistant, or an AI avatar, that answers from real product information and connects to supported Shopify cart and checkout workflows.

  1. Ask in your own words
  2. Compare options
  3. Pick a variant
  4. Add to cart
  5. Confirm & check out

Purchases, shipping details, and other consequential changes are confirmed by the customer and executed through authorized commerce interfaces.

The solution

15 capabilities, from catalog to community.

Select an area to see how each capability works and the conditions it depends on.

01 / 2 capabilities

Catalog intelligence and discovery

The merchant's existing Shopify catalog becomes the foundation for recommendations that reflect what each shopper actually cares about.

Shopify integration & product intelligence

HOBO initially integrates with Shopify to connect the merchant's product catalog and supported commerce workflows with its AI-powered engagement experience.

Through the appropriate Shopify APIs and permissions, the platform can work with product information such as titles, descriptions, categories, variants, pricing, availability, and other supported catalog attributes. It can also use permitted storefront interaction signals to understand how customers engage with products and content.

This integration creates a foundation for product recommendations, conversational shopping, wishlist management, and relevant content personalization without requiring merchants to maintain a separate product catalog for the HOBO experience.

The underlying architecture is modular, allowing the product and engagement capabilities to be adapted for additional ecommerce platforms or custom storefronts over time.

Personalized product discovery & recommendations

HOBO analyzes relevant customer interactions to help identify products that may be more suitable for each shopper.

These signals can inform a recommendation system that ranks products according to the customer's apparent interests, preferences, and shopping context.

For example, if a customer asks about choosing a gift for a younger sibling and provides relevant information, the system may use that context to recommend suitable products when the information is available and appropriate to retain.

Recommendations can appear in product listings, discovery experiences, and other relevant storefront placements. The goal is to make the shopping experience more useful and personal, rather than simply displaying the same products to every visitor.

Signals can include, depending on available data

  • Products viewed and revisited.
  • Categories and product attributes explored.
  • Wishlist additions and removals.
  • Questions asked through the AI assistant.
  • Engagement with product videos and other content.
  • Relevant purchase history and previous shopping activity, where permitted.

Business value

Value on every side of the storefront.

  • For ecommerce merchants

    • Improve product discovery through personalized recommendations.
    • Provide AI-assisted customer support and shopping guidance.
    • Build a reusable library of customer-generated video content.
    • Encourage customer participation through structured incentives.
    • Create opportunities for cross-store product bundles and partnerships.
    • Understand customer interests through connected engagement analytics.
    • Improve the relevance of merchandising and marketing campaigns.

  • For customers

    • Discover products that better match their interests.
    • Ask questions and receive shopping guidance at any time.
    • Explore products through short-form videos and real customer experiences.
    • Create and share wishlists.
    • Participate in brand communities without needing to publish content on personal social accounts.
    • Complete supported shopping tasks through a more conversational experience.

  • For participating partner stores

    • Explore complementary product relationships.
    • Build collaborative bundles and promotional opportunities.
    • Reach relevant audiences through cross-store discovery.
    • Create additional value from compatible catalogs and customer experiences.

Edgerunners' contribution

Where social video meets commerce operations.

Edgerunners developed HOBO as a modular AI-powered commerce experience that connects product catalog integration, behavioral analytics, personalized recommendations, conversational shopping, and customer-generated video content.

The platform combines ecommerce APIs with AI-driven product discovery and a structured UGC workflow, enabling merchants to turn customer participation into a repeatable source of product education and marketing content.

Its central innovation is the connection between social-style video creation, incentives, personalization, and commerce operations. Customers can contribute valuable content without having to promote a brand through their personal social accounts, while merchants gain additional opportunities to build engagement and understand shopping behavior.

Although initially developed for Shopify, the modular architecture creates a path toward supporting additional ecommerce platforms and custom storefronts.

  • Product catalog integration
  • Behavioral analytics
  • Personalized recommendations
  • Conversational shopping
  • Customer-generated video
  • Structured UGC workflow

The outcome

HOBO transforms ecommerce from a static storefront into an AI-powered social shopping experience.

By connecting personalized product discovery, conversational assistance, customer-generated video, collaborative commerce, and actionable analytics, HOBO helps merchants create more engaging shopping journeys and gives customers more useful ways to explore products.

The result is a platform where customers do more than browse and buy: they discover, learn, share, and contribute to the content and community that help ecommerce brands grow.

Privacy, content rights & integration

Personal, without overstepping.

Personalization, profiling, and UGC reuse only work when customers can trust how their data and content are handled.

  • Behavioral analytics, customer profiling, personalized advertising, and marketing workflows should operate within clear privacy and consent policies.

  • Customer-generated videos require appropriate submission terms and explicit usage permissions before publication or reuse in merchant-owned or external marketing channels.

  • Incentive programs should have transparent eligibility, review, and reward conditions.

  • Shopify-specific capabilities depend on the relevant APIs, scopes, platform policies, and merchant configuration. Cross-store bundles, external publishing, order operations, and other integrations may require additional technical or commercial arrangements.

  • Personalization should rely on appropriate signals, preserve accurate product information, and avoid inferring sensitive personal attributes or using customer information beyond the purposes for which it was legitimately collected.

Let's talk

Turn your customers into your best content.

Whether you run a Shopify store or a custom storefront, we can help you add AI shopping assistance, personalized discovery, and a structured UGC program that fits your brand.

Discuss your commerce experience

HOBO — AI-powered social commerce and customer engagement, by Edgerunners.