Nearly half of surveyed U.S. consumers used at least one AI tool to help them with shopping, according to consumer intelligence firm NielsenIQ, suggesting that the technology may be an emerging influence on American shopping habits.
Data showed 42 percent of consumers have used at least one AI tool to shop within the past month, NIQ said in a recent statement. This was based on its ongoing research that sampled approximately 500 U.S. consumers earlier this year.
The findings, NIQ said, point to AI’s influence on how consumers evaluate their options and narrow their choices before they make a purchase.
More specifically, 17 percent of the respondents used AI for product recommendations. Ten percent used a voice assistant to either purchase or reorder items and 10 percent engaged with an AI-powered shopping assistant.
“We are witnessing the early stages of an industry-wide fundamental shift from search to decision,” said Liz Buchanan, NIQ North America president.
“AI is not replacing the consumer, but it is dramatically reshaping how choices are made. The companies that win in this next era will be the ones that understand how to show up in those moments and deliver both value and trust,” she added.
Despite the apparent openness to AI-assisted shopping, the research also noted that “most are not yet ready to fully delegate decisions.” In the survey, only five percent used fully autonomous AI agents–also known as agentic AI–to place orders on their behalf.
Given the power of AI to recommend shopping purchases, NIQ said their findings also suggest that the challenge now is for brands show up on the AI’s recommendations. Buchanan said this means the idea of a store shelf is “no longer just physical or digital; it’s algorithmic.”
“That changes how products compete, how performance is measured, and how growth is unlocked,” she said.
Other studies point to the same signs: more people are using AI to decide on what to buy. For example, Tinuiti, a digital marketing firm, surveyed 1,000 U.S. Amazon Prime members to anticipate shopping patterns ahead of the e-commerce giant’s biggest sale of the year this June.
Among other findings, they found that the majority of the younger generations—76 percent and 72 percent of Gen Z and millennial shoppers, respectively—plan to use an AI tool to optimize their shopping on Prime Day.
