Is AI Usurping Your Brand?
What New Research Finds About How Consumers Shop With AI
4,000
See what the data says about how shoppers are using AI, and what brands can do to keep up.
Reshaping Loyalty
The Highlights
43.4%
of consumers feel more loyal to the AI tool that found the product they want than the brand that made it.
That means brands need to redouble their efforts in finding creative ways to reach and engage with shoppers.
87.6%
of shoppers use AI tools at least once a week, and 60.8% say AI increases their confidence in purchase decisions.
Across the board, people are turning to AI more often than they did last year to help with their shopping experience. Brands need to cater to the desire for “instant certainty” in modern shoppers.
41.4%
of consumers would rather shop through AI than directly on a brand’s site if forced to choose.
The more traditional channel-centric strategy will no longer be enough for customers. Brands have to reach customers in real time, even on emerging channels such as ChatGPT and Claude.
From Curiosity to Habit
Shoppers Don’t Want AI — They Need It
Even just a year ago*, consumers approached AI in the shopping experience as more of a curiosity. Now that perception has shifted, with AI tools becoming a staple of everyday behavior. 87.6% of shoppers use AI tools at least once a week (vs. 69.5% last year), while 41.8% use these tools daily (vs. only 24.1% last year).
Additionally, 75.4% of shoppers have used AI tools like Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini to help with shopping or purchase decisions. The shopping experience that once lived entirely on your brand site is increasingly being passed through third-party tools.
*Based on a 2025 consumer survey run by Bloomreach with over 1,000 respondents.
Shoppers that use AI tools at least once a week
2025
69.5%
2026
87.6%
Daily AI tool use
2025
24.1%
2026
41.8%
THE EVOLVING ROLE OF AI
The Trends Show AI Taking on a Larger Role
In the next year, AI is only going to become more prevalent in consumers’ lives. Of those surveyed, 55.6% said they plan to use AI more often in the next 12 months.
And it’s not just hype. 80.4% of consumers said that AI shopping experiences have met or exceeded expectations.
This wasn’t always the case — AI hasn’t always lived up to expectations, which makes it tempting for brands to delay implementing an agentic commerce strategy. However, as the quality of AI tools keeps improving and more people embrace using AI as they shop, it’s crucial for brands to find ways to meet consumers’ evolving expectations.
55.6%
of shoppers plan to use AI more in the next 12 months
80.4%
of consumers said AI shopping experiences have met or exceeded expectations
Shift in shopper expectations
The New Expectation: Instant Certainty
The Internet brought about instant gratification — the ability to get access to any kind of content and information with just a click. Now, AI is bringing about a similarly seismic shift in shopper expectations: instant certainty.
Consumers are increasingly turning to AI to compare product features or prices, search for deals or discounts, and find product ideas or inspiration — and they’re doing it at much higher rates than just a year ago.
Comparing product features or prices
2025
35%
2026
47.6%
Searching for deals or discounts
2025
42.1%
2026
46.3%
Finding product ideas or inspiration
2025
33.5%
2026
40.8%
And AI is proving to be effective, with 60.8% of surveyed consumers saying that AI increases their confidence in purchase decisions.
39.5% also saw an increase in shopping frequency when using AI to shop, while 37.5% noted an increase in overall spending.
Personalized recommendations, conversational shopping, and intent-driven search — all of these AI features have helped improve how people shop online. Compare this to only 36% in 2025 saying they were “very confident” that AI’s information was accurate and relevant.
60.8%
of consumers say AI increases their confidence in purchase decisions
Where Does This Leave Brands?
The window to reach and engage shoppers has considerably shortened — brands have very little time to engage potential customers and convince them to stick with their brand. So, what does this mean for brand strategies?
What This Means for Marketing
Shoppers are starting to give their loyalty to AI solutions instead of the brand. This will lead to a shift in how brands approach their strategies and reach customers.
Channel Strategies Will Change
As consumers increase their reliance on AI tools for shopping, their behavior becomes even less predictable, which means brands can no longer rely on channel-centric strategies to reach them.
Brands that want to capture customer loyalty will need to focus on being there for shoppers in real time, at the exact moment they need it, whether it’s a nudge on SMS, a promotional email, or a conversational shopping prompt.
Brand Voice Will Only Become More Important
To positively shape this perception, brands will need to imbue every aspect of the shopping experience — including any AI tools or assistants — with their brand messaging, positioning, voice, and tone.
Personalization Will Be a Bigger Priority
Personalization is a clear priority for shoppers, and brands will need to adapt by including deeper and more relevant personalization with every message they send.
What This Means for Commerce Teams
With the shift to instant certainty, consumers are much more likely to bounce from a site that doesn’t meet their expectations. As a result, data and AI will play much bigger roles in powering the on-site experience.
Product Data Is the Crux
The key to ensuring that AI doesn’t make those mistakes is good product data that’s clear, detailed, and geared toward what shoppers are searching for. Brands that make this time and resource investment will not only see an improved site search experience, but also see their products get surfaced more often in third-party tools.
Effective Merchandising Will Be a Revenue Driver
Brands will need to retool their merchandising strategies if they want to capitalize on this. AI will be helpful here in automating processes, optimizing strategies, personalizing products and ranking, and proactively identifying opportunities to drive more revenue.
More Consumers Will Embrace Conversational Shopping
Increasingly, consumers will turn to conversational shopping agents to prevent dead ends and open up new avenues of engagement. Brands can use this technology to help answer questions, surface relevant recommendations, and guide shoppers from search to checkout.
What's next
The Takeaway
AI is rapidly becoming a crucial aspect of the shopping journey, whether through AI-powered recommendations or AI shopping assistants. As consumers rely more on these solutions, brands face a new challenge: keeping customers loyal to their brand and not the AI.
Brands need to balance providing AI-powered shopping experiences with finding creative ways to keep their brand top of mind and build lasting relationships.