Consumers Aren’t Ready to Let AI Do Their Holiday Shopping Yet

Retailers are building the bones that will allow AI agents to shop on behalf of consumers. But it's unlikely many shoppers will be willing to sacrifice their autonomy to a bot just yet. Only 16% of consumers say they trust AI agents to complete purchases for them, according to a survey of 4,000 U.S. consumers conducted by Deloitte in August and September. Sixty-six percent said they worry about how data is used by AI assistants, according to Deloitte, though 37% said they're more comfortable using agents than they were six months ago. Other recent surveys conducted ahead of the holiday season also show that consumers are hesitant about agentic shopping. In September, Bizrate Insights and eMarketer found 51% of U.S. online shoppers said they haven't bought products through an AI platform and aren't interested in doing so. In a survey conducted by American Bankers Association in October, 77% of consumers said they are concerned about giving an AI agent permission to move money, make payments, or carry out other financial transactions for them. However, consumers are increasingly confident in using agents to search for products they want to purchase. Per Deloitte's survey, 57% of shoppers are already aware of generative AI agents on retailer websites, and 39% said generative AI is their primary tool for at least one of their shopping tasks, such as finding deals, recommendations, alternative products, and price comparisons. “Not only do I find it removes a lot of friction from shopping, but [shopping with generative AI] feels so much more personal and satisfying to be able to find exactly what you're looking for,” said Brian McCarthy, a principal in Deloitte’s strategy and analytics practice. “It increases your confidence in making that purchase decision.” A separate study from Gartner found that 34% of U.S. consumers said they are very or extremely willing to use gen AI-backed tools or chatbots for holiday gift recommendations. “People are finding AI tools most helpful to narrow their selection set from the beginning of the shopping process," said Emily Weiss, a senior analyst at Gartner. While many shoppers will turn to ChatGPT, Gemini, or Meta's new Muse assistant, retailers have been beefing up agentic commerce offerings on their own platforms ahead of the holiday season as well. Target is testing a conversational AI-powered shopping assistant, Ask Target, on Target.com and in its app, which it announced alongside its holiday marketing campaign earlier this month. Instacart and Shipt also recently launched AI assistants in September. Walmart, Lowe's, and The Home Depot launched agents last year, among others. But according to Molly Schonthal, managing director of agentic commerce for WPP Enterprise Solutions, these agents haven't broken through with consumers yet. "The majority of people who are looking for recommendations and advice are going to go to the big open agents,” she said. The rise of agentic commerce Many retailers are bullish on the idea that consumers will want the whole shopping process to be automated. Walmart plans to launch a dedicated portal, along with profiles, and rules for AI agents shopping on behalf of customers. But consumers may instead want to make a purchase on another ecommerce platform or find the product in person. “There continues to be friction between what retailers are doing and offering,” Weiss said. “I think there's a small sect of consumers that do want to automate that [transaction], but that is not mainstream, and it's not what we're hearing or seeing from any of our studies over time." Schonthal said brand leaders have been demanding strategies to show up better in AI agents. The solution, she said, is to make hyper-specific details more visible across the web and other channels, including social media, Reddit, and product reviews. Google's Marco Delaroche also said last week it’s important for brands to make sure that key information like price and availability is visible, as well as deeper attributes like the product material in areas like apparel. “I see brands all the time who should win in a context or category who are not winning," Schonthal said. "They will describe to me that a less-qualified brand is winning, or is being seen, because this particular brand has done a really good job of showing up in context."

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Consumers Aren’t Ready to Let AI Do Their Holiday Shopping Yet

Few consumers trust agents to purchase on their behalf, surveys suggest

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Mitchell Parton

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