One-in-three (33 percent) of e-commerce brands are using AI shopping agents, according to research from e-commerce platform Pattern Group, highlighting the shift that consumers are using AI to make purchases online.
The From Insights to Execution in AI-Powered Commerce Report is based on the survey of 1000 senior business leaders across the US, UK, Germany, and the UAE, to find out how AI is being used across e-commerce today.
A majority of respondents (87 percent) feel AI search will drive direct sales over the next year.
While 76 percent of e-commerce businesses have reduced costs around customer acquisition because consumers are relying more on AI tools for product discovery.
The motivation to adopt AI differed amongst respondents – this included enhancing customer experience (30 percent), improving operational efficiency, regulatory pressures and staying competitive in the market (28 percent each), and reducing costs (21 percent).
The Rise of Agentic-Powered Commerce
Commerce brands are also increasingly using AI agents to power sales, with more than half (57 percent) exploring AI agent use cases and a third (33 percent) are actively deploying agents.
The fashion and beauty industry have been the quickest to deploy agents for commerce, with 59 percent of beauty brands exploring AI agents and 46 percent of fashion companies becoming the primary source of customer discovery.
“AI agents aren’t a future interface – they’re a new operating layer for commerce,” said Ryan Byrd, Chief Technology Officer at Pattern. “Brands that treat agentic AI like just another marketing channel will fall behind. This shift rewards accuracy, availability, and trust, favouring brands built on clean data, real-time operations, and real customer value.”
In the past weeks Google introduced checkout features into its AI tools and OpenAI launched ads in ChatGPT, hinting that consumers will likely turn to AI chatbots more and more for their product discovery and purchasing, all in one place.
