In this English-language interview, Vida Digital host Alex Neuman sits down with Igor Ilievski, founder of Amenex and creator of Amenexia, an AI-powered shopping assistant built to bring the human experience of brick-and-mortar retail into the world of 24/7 e‑commerce. Igor shares his journey from launching an online pop art store in Macedonia over 20 years ago to building a New York–based e‑commerce agency and eventually choosing Panama as the strategic hub for expanding across Latin America.

Amenexia helps online stores answer customer questions in real time, personalize recommendations based on behavior and order history, and integrate with platforms like Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce and enterprise ERPs such as SAP. By using an agentic AI system that can connect to multiple models, Amanexia reduces customer support costs, boosts conversion rates from around 2% to close to 4%, and delivers a more human, conversational shopping experience at scale.​

The conversation also explores the current state of e‑commerce in Panama, the challenges of moving from physical stores to effective online sales, and why most merchants fail when they treat their website as a static catalog instead of an interactive sales channel. Igor offers practical advice for founders: invest in real-time support, remove as much risk as possible from the buying process (returns, sizing, shipping clarity), and treat online customers with the same care and attention as those who walk into a physical store.​

If you run an online store or plan to launch one in Panama or the wider region, this episode is a concise masterclass on using AI to improve customer experience, automation and profitability. To learn more about Amenexia, integrations with your existing stack, and how to get started, visit amenexia.ai and reach out via their contact form.