AI Shopping Adoption Is Rising, but Trust Still Caps Action

Introduction

Editor's note: This research was conducted by Exploding Topics , the trend discovery platform owned by Semrush, and is republished here with permission. Data is drawn from a proprietary survey of 1,009 US consumers. Full methodology appears at the end of this article . More than three in four consumers have used AI to help with shopping or purchasing decisions in the last six months, according to new research from Exploding...

Fast facts

77.6% of consumers have used AI to shop in the past six months, with 43.21% using it weekly or more Most shoppers are using AI for product research (68.5%) and finding the best price (55.19%) Among those who use AI to shop, ChatGPT is the most popular tool (77.56%), followed by Google Gemini (58.21%) 68.07% of consumers who have tried using AI to help with their shopping have increased their usage in the past six months AI...

Part 1: The AI Commerce Surge

This section introduces a point that needs to be interpreted in context before it becomes useful.

AI is an increasingly ubiquitous shopping tool

To get a baseline, we first asked respondents how they would describe their use of AI generally. This yielded a striking response. Of the 1,000+ people we surveyed, almost half reported using AI frequently. But more eye-catchingly, only 9.81% had never used an AI tool. High adoption was a recurring theme when we asked about AI commerce specifically. 43.21% of consumers are using AI to help with shopping at least once a week,...

Survey question- How often have you used AI to help with shopping or purchase decisions? Credit: original article.

How are consumers using AI to shop?

"AI commerce" is a broad term that can capture a wide range of consumer activities. We wanted to find out exactly how people are incorporating AI into their purchases. Product research emerged as the leading use case , adopted by more than two-thirds (68.5%) of shoppers. More than half (55.19%) also reported using AI for finding the best price/deals. Deciding between brands, getting gift ideas, and summarizing customer...

Survey question- Which shopping tasks have you used AI for? Credit: original article.

Survey question- What have you used AI to shop for? Credit: original article.

The AI shopping tools of choice

ChatGPT still enjoys the largest market share across most consumer AI functions, and shopping is no different. 77.56% of shoppers use ChatGPT when they want AI assistance. The prevalence of Gemini is perhaps more surprising. 58.21% of shoppers reported using Google's AI, well over twice as many as the next most popular tool. Of course, Google has embedded Gemini in AI Overviews and AI Mode. Its search engine has long been the...

Survey question- Which AI tools have you used for shopping purposes? Credit: original article.

Survey question- Preferred AI shopping tools by gender Credit: original article.

Evolving AI shopping habits

It is remarkable how quickly AI has embedded itself as a standard shopping companion. Among those who are now using the technology, 39.1% say they use AI for shopping "much more" than they did six months ago. A further 28.97% of consumers are using AI tools for shopping "a bit more" in the last half-year. Only 6.02% have decreased their usage. Middle Atlantic residents stand out as the keenest adopters. Almost half (49.04%)...

Survey question- How has your use of AI tools for shopping changed in the last six months? Credit: original article.

Survey question- Has using AI ever directly influenced you to buy something you wouldn Credit: original article.

Survey question- AI-influenced purchasing habits by household income Credit: original article.

Survey question- Attitudes to whether AI has made shopping research easier Credit: original article.

Survey question- How would you describe your trust in AI as a shopping tool Credit: original article.

The typical AI purchase pipeline

So most people are using AI commerce tools, and uptake has only gotten higher in the last six months. But interestingly, there is no clear consensus about how to use AI for shopping. We know that product research and price comparison is popular. But that doesn't tell us too much about what a typical AI-assisted purchasing journey actually looks like. I use AI as a starting point and then consult other sources I start on...

Survey question- Which of these best describes how you typically use AI to shop Credit: original article.

Part 2: The AI commerce red line

This section introduces a point that needs to be interpreted in context before it becomes useful.

Instant Checkout: Don't know it, don't like it

Regardless of which stage in the shopping process users introduce artificial intelligence, the final step is nearly always external checkout. Given that consumers are clearly keen on using AI as part of the commerce journey, tools that eliminate this point of friction make superficial sense. That was the idea behind Instant Checkout from ChatGPT ; you can do all of your research within the app, and then complete your purchase...

Distrust of AI companies with payment data

One of the biggest hurdles when it comes to further integrating AI into commerce is that most people don't feel comfortable trusting chatbots with their card details in order to make direct purchases easier in future. In total, 51.45% of consumers are at least somewhat uncomfortable at the idea of AI tools storing their card details. Only around 1 in 4 are "very comfortable." As well as being the most popular response...

Hard spending cap for autonomous AI purchases

Given that some degree of skepticism cuts across multiple demographics, it isn't too surprising to learn that consumers remain reluctant to empower AI to spend vast sums autonomously. However, the extent of the reluctance is eye-catching: the mode amount a consumer would authorize AI to spend autonomously is $0 . Specifically, we asked how much consumers would trust AI to spend in the scenario where they were instructing an...

Agentic commerce is here to stay

The tension at the heart of these results is that despite this reluctance to sanction AI spend, there is widespread belief that AI's role in commerce will continue to get bigger. More than half of people (55.83%) think AI will play a bigger role in how they shop in five years' time. Only 12.37% believe it will play a smaller role. Even among non-users, almost a third (32.44% ) predict that AI will play an at least somewhat...

Methodology

This survey was completed by 1,009 respondents in total. After the general questions about frequency of AI usage and AI shopping usage, non-users were skipped for the remainder of Part 1, before being reintroduced for Part 2 (where the opinions of non-users offered valuable insights). All respondents were from the US, spanning all regions (there were no respondents from the US Territories). 56.03% of respondents were female,...

Practical next steps

The useful part is not only the idea itself, but the operating habit behind it. Use it as a checklist for decisions: what deserves attention now, what should be monitored, what needs a stronger evidence base, and what can wait until the system has more scale.