eBay.ai Suggested Replies
Project Overview
Buyers ask before they buy, yet more than 1 in 4 messages on eBay went unanswered, and slow replies were linked to an 11-point drop in conversion. I proposed eBay.ai Suggested Replies and led it end to end: AI drafts a reply from the seller's own listing, and the seller decides what gets sent. It became the AI pillar of the Messages strategy I led, and its pattern is now eBay's standard for AI in Messages.
Industries
Conversational AI
Marketplace
Services
Proposed & led end to end
AI interaction patterns
Concept to launch
Year
2024–2025
Сhallenge
My first design let eBay.ai answer routine questions directly in the chat, clearly labeled. We tested it with employees and in research, and the answer split: buyers were fine with it, but sellers feared an AI mistake would look like their own. Leadership pushed for seller review first, and once I saw the research, I agreed. The model was still learning too. Our first beta was about 60% accurate and took 12 seconds to answer. So each version gave sellers more control, moving the answer out of the public thread and into a private draft only the seller sees. I also designed opt-in automatic replies as a future direction; they weren’t part of the launch.
Design Approach
I designed how AI takes part in a conversation, then made it a standard. Through rounds of review with OX, the team that owns eBay’s design system, and our product partners, it became one pattern: answers grounded in the seller’s listing, offered only when confidence checks pass, labeled “Generated by eBay.ai” and seen only by the seller, who decides with Edit & Send, Dismiss, or by turning it off. That pattern is now part of eBay’s Playbook. With eBay’s marketing team, I carried the same promise beyond the app, into a seller email, a Seller Center guide and eBay Help: you’re always in control.
Results
eBay.ai Suggested Replies grew from 170+ employees to sellers in the US, UK, Germany and Australia. Two lessons from the Australian beta shaped the launch. Only 14% of sellers opted in, so we explained it where sellers already look. And most suggestions went unused, so I renamed Use to Edit & Send and opened the draft ready to edit. Today, sellers use more than 3 million suggestions a month. Looking back, autonomy is a product decision, not a model capability: the model sets what's possible; design decides when AI acts, and who stays in control.