Rokt details its measurement-first, closed-network approach to enhancing the Transaction Moment™ through contextual relevance
Rokt, the leading ecommerce technology company using machine learning and AI to make transactions more relevant to each consumer, today shared how its AI Brain enhances contextual relevance at checkout. A measurement-first approach allows Rokt to enhance the customer experience while driving conversion in the Transaction Moment.
Rokt’s AI Brain evaluates when and how to present first- and third-party cross-sell opportunities during checkout, prioritizing relevance, trust, and performance. When quality thresholds cannot be met, Rokt’s systems show nothing at all, ensuring the experience remains seamless.
“Checkout is one of the highest-intent moments in ecommerce,” said Claire Southey, Chief AI Officer at Rokt. “Our focus is on measuring what actually matters, enhancing the customer experience through relevance, while using AI to surface only those offers that truly add value at that moment.”
Checkout is high-intent and high-risk
Checkout and confirmation experiences are among the highest-intent moments in ecommerce. According to Southey, the same placement that can drive meaningful incremental revenue can also introduce risk if it distracts customers or sends them away from the purchase flow.
Rokt supports “distributed commerce,” enabling third-party cross-sells that keep customers in the purchase experience, including in-flow “add to cart” mechanics, rather than redirecting shoppers off-site.
Quality thresholds: “show the right content or show nothing”
A core principle of Rokt’s approach is enhancing trust and conversion by enforcing minimum quality standards for every recommendation.
Rokt evaluates potential third-party cross-sells in an auction but may choose not to show any offer if it cannot meet a minimum reserve quality threshold. “The best thing is to get out of the customer’s way and let them complete the purchase,” Southey said.
How Rokt powers relevance at scale
The Rokt Brain determines the next best product, service, or step within tight performance constraints.
Key elements include:
- Partner controls and inventory governance: Mechanisms to control what can appear on the page, including granular opt-in/opt-out choices, to avoid conflicts, competitors, or brand misalignment.
- Measurement-first optimization: Monitoring conversion metrics to manage the trade-off between ancillary revenue and core conversion, with the goal of minimizing incremental cart abandonment when experiences are relevant.
- First-party data and a “closed network” model: When partners provide first-party signals under appropriate legal and ethical frameworks, Rokt uses that data to serve that partner. Consistent with Rokt’s Never Shared, Sold, or Used principle, Southey describes this as a “one-way door: data goes in; it doesn’t go out.”
- Richer behavioral modeling: Moving beyond broad demographic signals toward longitudinal behavior such as cart history, abandoned items, and explored products.
- Embeddings and semantic understanding: New embedding systems and AI tooling that encode customer context and offer meaning more efficiently across large-scale commerce data.
- Low-latency inference: Delivering relevance decisions thousands of times per second within tight latency budgets to avoid impacting page load time.
Trust principles for data-driven commerce
Southey noted that customer trust is foundational, and increasingly important as algorithmic purchasing and agentic commerce evolve. She identified three trust requirements:
- Transparency in how data is used
- Reciprocal value for the data shared
- The ability to unwind consent, including deleting data
Looking ahead: from click to purchase to delight
Rokt’s long-term focus is improving how relevance is defined and measured. Southey described a progression from optimizing for clicks to optimizing for purchases — and, over time, toward measuring whether an experience truly fulfilled customer needs.
Rokt’s trusted, scaled network powered more than 7.5 billion transactions in 2025 across thousands of leading ecommerce businesses. In 2024, Rokt saw revenues grow by more than 40% year over year to $600 million. Rokt recently announced partnerships with PayPal, Fanatics, Ulta Beauty, Cineplex, Albertsons, and Macy’s as well as its acquisitions of Canal, Rokt mParticle and Rokt Aftersell.
