Bain: How next-gen AI is disrupting the shopping journey
The emergence of advanced consumer artificial intelligence tools is having a significant impact on how shoppers find and purchase products.
Seven-in-10 U.S. consumers now use AI in their personal lives, with 45% using it daily (up roughly 25% between December 2024 and September 2025). "How U.S. Consumers Are Adopting Generative AI," a survey of 1,500 U.S. consumers from Bain & Company, indicates this rapidly rising consumer use of AI includes leading-edge generative AI and agentic AI solutions.
While the survey indicates this shift toward AI usage by consumers is impacting shopping behaviors, it also reveals some hesitancy on the part of customers to turn over certain parts of the shopping journey to AI tools.
For example, nearly 15% more consumers are relying on AI overviews for answers to most product searches, without clicking any external links, than were in December 2024. This “zero click” model now accounts for approximately 65% of consumer searches.
Fifteen percent of respondents start searches with generative AI chatbots (25% of Gen Z and millennial respondents). Another roughly 30% use both chatbots and search engines.
Roughly 35-40% of respondents currently use generative AI and retailer chatbots. Almost six-in-10 (58%) of all respondents who shop with generative AI, including 63% of millennials and 59% of Gen Z, use it for shopping advice and decision support.
Close to one-in-five (17%) of respondents will start holiday shopping with an AI platform such as ChatGPT or Perplexity (this includes 52% of millennials). Three-in-10 will start with AI-enabled Google search.
Consumer trust in agentic and generative AI lags
Agentic AI, which goes a step beyond the capabilities of generative AI by analyzing massive amounts of data in near-real-time and then automatically taking action based on the results, is becoming more frequently used by shoppers, but most lack full trust in its functionality.
Only 25% of respondents would trust a known retailer agentic AI chat bot to manage their end-to-end shopping journey. The same percentage would trust generative AI to manage their whole shopping process and just 7% would trust another AI platform.
Generative AI emerges as research tool
Where consumers are starting to show higher levels of trust in generative AI is its utility as a shopping research aid. More than half (55%) of respondents trust generative AI to give accurate answers and information. Gen Z (88%) and millennial (86%) respondents have the highest overall usage rates of generative AI.
Nearly four-in-10 (38%) shoppers in a similar recent survey from Contentsquare said they trust AI for general research, while 21% use it to find deals and promotions, and 16% rely on it for side-by-side product comparison. Three-in-10 said they would be willing to let an AI agent actually complete a purchase on their behalf.
[READ MORE: Survey: Consumers lean on AI for product research, online shopping help]
