Survey: AI tool usage, trust up from last year among consumers
A large portion of Americans are now using AI tools when researching a purchase.
New survey data from consumer research platform Attest reveals that nearly half (49%) of U.S. consumers now profess to using AI tools when researching a purchase, a six-point increase from its survey from last year. ChatGPT (44%) is also the most popular Gen AI tool, followed by Google Gemini (31%) and Microsoft Copilot (Bing) (19%).
Trust in AI tools is growing, as nearly half (45%) of consumers would trust the information given to them by an AI chatbot or tool, up from 40% last year. Meanwhile, 17% go so far as to say they trust the information provided by AI tools “completely.”
U.S. consumers now place as much trust in information provided by Gen AI (at 42% of respondents) as they do in organic search results (42% also), versus a minority, 15%, who say they trust Gen AI information less than organic search results.
When asked what potential benefits there are for brands using AI technology, respondents said faster customer support (45%), helping staff do their jobs (38%), and more creative advertising (38%) were the most popular responses. Greater product innovation (32%), better customer experience (31%) and better personalization (29%) were also reported.
[READ MORE: Retail Technology News: February update]
While Americans are increasingly utilizing AI tools, Attest found that users still have some concerns about the technology. The top three concerns cited about brands relying on AI technology were replacing human jobs (56%), a loss of the “human touch” (54%) and AI replacing real-person customer support (53%).
There is also a desire from consumers for the use of AI by brands to be regulated in some way, including mandatory labeling of AI-generated content (79%) and laws to control the use of consumers’ data to train AI (75%).
Attest polled 4,000 nationally representative working-age consumers based in the U.S. across two surveys for the report.
