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LLMs have become one of the most powerful forces in commerce. Shoppers are using ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, and others to research products, compare options, and make purchase decisions—often without visiting your website until they’re ready to purchase (or at all).
To understand how this shift is playing out, Rithum and Industry Dive surveyed 1K+ U.S. and U.K. online shoppers.
What we found will change how you think about your shoppers.
What the data shows
- 58% of shoppers say their trust in a brand decreases when AI gives them the wrong product information—and 16% won’t complete the purchase at all.
- More than 8 in 10 shoppers under 44 have used an LLM as part of their shopping journey in the last three months. Among households earning $100K–$150K, adoption hits 84%.
- When shoppers verify an AI recommendation, only 5% go to the retailer’s website. The other 95% turn to search engines, reviews, or friends and family— sources you don’t control.
- 1 in 5 shoppers have bought from a brand they’d never heard of because AI recommended it. The shoppers most likely to act on that recommendation without a second look are your highest-income, highest-intent customers.
The report covers what it means to lose brand trust when AI gets it wrong, how age and income determine which shoppers trust AI most and verify it least, why product data quality is now a competitive advantage, and what you need to do before agentic shopping becomes agentic transactions.
Want a quick look? Check-out this one-pager with the big takeaways.
For the full read, download The new discovery engine: How consumers are using AI to find, trust, and choose brands, and what’s at risk for those they never see.
