Amazon, Alibaba and Microsoft are the leading companies in the Ambient Commerce theme, according to the latest Thematic Scorecard for the ecommerce sector from GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

The three companies all gained the highest Thematic score (5 out of 5) in GlobalData’s Thematic Scorecard for the ecommerce sector. A Thematic score of 5 out of 5 indicates that this theme will significantly improve their future performance.

On their tail, with scores of 4 out of 5, are Google and China’s Tencent, JD.com and Baidu.

Ambient Commerce describes a new form of shopping which makes use of sensors coupled with artificial intelligence to help customers select and pay for their goods without the need for keyboards or cash registers.

GlobalData’s Thematic Scorecard ranks companies within a sector on the basis of overall leadership in the 10 themes that matter most to their industry, generating a leading indicator of future earnings growth.