A third of consumers are open to buying products directly through AI tools like ChatGPT, according to new research from marketing data insights company Kantar.
The study surveyed 2000 panel participants to find out how they feel about using AI as part of their consumer experience.
A small fraction (15 percent) say that if a product wasn’t recommended by AI tools, then they would assume it wasn’t for them – suggesting that shoppers trust AI tools, and potentially view them as a trusted personal assistant, likely because of the conversational experience they provide.
Interestingly, however, 41 percent of people think brands recommended by GenAI have paid the AI company to surface within the platform.
Almost half (41 percent) of UK shoppers report feeling excited about using AI tools, 19 percent felt overwhelmed by AI but not necessarily negative towards it, 27 percent didn’t trust AI but were open to experimenting with it, and a small 13 percent said they didn’t want to engage with AI tools at all.
The report found that consumers are most likely to use AI for travel and tourism, over using it to buy groceries, clothes, and for telecoms.
Overall, consumers will often use AI tools for their search and discovery of products and services, as opposed to purchasing within the tools themselves.
Product Discovery Over Checkout
ChatGPT recently scaled back plans to fully roll out its ‘Instant Checkout’ feature that would let users search for and purchase directly in its chatbot interface.
The feature, which had partners like Walmart and Etsy join to let ChatGPT users buy their products without leaving a chat, reportedly didn’t drive significant sales for participants, pushing the AI company to pull back.
It was found that real-world usage reflected people using ChatGPT for research and to compare products over finalising a purchase.
Instead, ChatGPT offers links to merchant websites and ChatGPT apps, which can enable final transactions.
