How eBay Is Making a Comeback After 30 Years — With the Help of AI

After years of losing market share to retail giants like Amazon and Walmart, eBay is making a comeback — thanks to artificial intelligence.

Under CEO Jamie Iannone, who took the reins in 2020, eBay has been reshaping itself into a smarter, faster, and more intuitive shopping platform. The company has introduced five new AI-powered features this year, including tools that help sellers list items automatically, estimate shipping times, and even enhance product images. eBay has also partnered with OpenAI to bring its listings into the ChatGPT ecosystem.

Investors are taking notice. eBay’s stock has risen 75% since 2020, outperforming major tech players like Microsoft and Amazon this year. But the company still faces tough competition, with its U.S. market share dipping from 7% in 2016 to under 3% in 2025.

Iannone believes eBay’s decades of user data give it a competitive edge. With over 2.4 billion active listings and 134 million buyers, the company is using that data to train its AI systems to improve recommendations and simplify sales for users.

New tools like eBay’s “magical listing” automatically generate product descriptions from photos, while the “eBay.ai” shopping assistant helps buyers find specific items through natural language searches. Analysts say these innovations could revitalize eBay’s identity as the go-to marketplace for unique, collectible, and secondhand goods.

The company is also keeping a human touch, acquiring social resale platform Tise to allow users to interact with sellers like influencers — proving that even in an AI-driven world, eBay still values connection.

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