AI-assisted shopping starts to go mainstream
The promised AI revolution in shopping is starting to materialise, with shoppers increasingly trusting agents for personal recommendations ahead of the festive season.
Traffic to retail sites from AI tools is expected to surge fivefold year-over-year, with particular boosts on Cyber Monday and Black Friday, according to Adobe.
“Traditional models of how consumers react with the web are going out the window,” Max Sinclair, Azoma CEO, said.
“Intelligent assistants begin to handle browsing, recommendations and purchasing on behalf of users.”
PayPal launched agentic commerce with ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, and several technology partners last month, while OpenAI launched its ‘Buy it in ChatGPT’ trial in the US in September.
Efficiency and ease of payment are a cornerstone of the shift: Alex Chriss, PayPal’s CEO, said that he wants to “help people go from chat to checkout in just a few taps”.
Ellie Tuck, creative director and partner at FleishmanHillard, a PR agency, had told City PM that AI is “one of the biggest shifts we’re seeing in how brands show up in the world”.
However, despite the popularity of ChatGPT and other Gen AI models, there’s still one key sticking point: traffic has yet to translate into purchases.
Brits ‘not ready’ to hand over full control
AI-driven traffic is still around a quarter less likely to convert into purchases than traditional traffic, but this is easing: The figure was 38 per cent in April and 49 per cent in January.
AI tools are “making it easier than ever” for consumers to discover, research and buy new products and services, but they can “just as easily turn people away”, Carrie Ryan, chief strategy officer at Trustpilot, said.
Crucially, consumers are concerned about data privacy and sharing, as well as the lack of a human touch, she explained.
“Trust is the currency,” she said, adding that user-generated reviews are crucial and that AI is best suited to product summaries, automatic checkout agents and fraud detection.
“Shoppers still want to maintain control,” Nabil Manji, head of FinTech growth at Worldpay, added.
“AI shopping assistants are… changing how we discover and buy the things we love [but] retailers need to be ready to meet shoppers where they are.”
‘The next frontier’ for retail
The rise of AI shopping comes as brand loyalty is eroding and price points become ever-more important to shoppers, making deal-finding and efficiency the ripest area for AI innovation.
Consumers are already more likely to use AI to find deals than for general purchases, with two-thirds of UK shoppers planning to use AI for holiday shopping, according to Shopify.
“The most successful businesses will pair AI-powered personalisation with transparent controls and easy access to human support,” the Shopify report found.
“The message is clear: there is scope for more AI adoption, and brands that balance tech‑enabled personalisation with human service will have the strongest advantage.”
Whether Brits are fully ready or not, AI is already infiltrating every area of retail, with all trends indicating increased adoption.
“Agentic commerce is not a theory anymore,” said Roy Avidor, CEO of Symbio. “It is the most significant change in online retail architecture in two decades, and it can only happen when merchants, AI, and payment data are partnering in a symbiotic manner.”
Roman Stanek, founder and longtime CEO at GoodData, said that agentic commerce is “the next frontier for retailing”.
“That’s a massive shift and it is here today… OpenAI wants to insert itself between brands and customers, and that’s both an existential threat and a once-in-a-generation opportunity. The smartest brands won’t fight it – they’ll build their own agents and ecosystems to stay in control”.