AI Shopping Adoption Hits 34%, but Trust Gap Persists: Acosta

What happened

Generative AI has become a mainstream part of the shopping journey, according to Acosta Group's new "AI Shopper Study." The research finds that 34% of consumers now use AI tools while shopping, with adoption strongest among Gen Z and millennials but growing among Baby Boomers too.

Shoppers cite saving money, comparing products, saving time and researching purchases as the main reasons for turning to AI tools. Notably, more than half of Gen Z shoppers who use AI do so while physically in store, suggesting the technology is being woven into bricks-and-mortar visits rather than replacing them.

Acosta Group also found that trust remains a limiting factor: shoppers are still hesitant to let AI agents complete purchases on their behalf, largely due to privacy concerns for themselves and their families.

Why it matters

AI is no longer a back-office efficiency tool for retailers — it is becoming a consumer-facing channel in its own right, sitting alongside search, marketplaces and physical stores as a route to purchase decisions. For brands and retailers, this reshapes where influence happens in the path to purchase: product discovery and comparison may increasingly occur inside an AI assistant before a shopper ever reaches a website or shelf.

The finding that over half of AI-using Gen Z shoppers deploy these tools in-store also signals a blending of digital and physical retail moments, with real-time price and product comparison now possible mid-aisle. This raises the stakes for retailers' own data transparency and in-store digital infrastructure, since shoppers may be cross-checking offers against third-party AI tools in real time.

By the numbers

• 34% of consumers overall report using AI tools to shop, per Acosta Group's study.
• 55% of Gen Z shoppers who use AI tools do so while shopping in physical stores.

The Renascence take

The headline number here isn't the adoption rate — it's the trust gap sitting right next to it. Shoppers are happy to let AI help them think, but not yet happy to let it act on their behalf with money or personal data. That gap is where the real strategic opportunity sits.

Most organisations will read this study as a mandate to bolt AI assistants onto their apps and websites. The sharper read is behavioral: adoption is running ahead of trust, and trust is the actual bottleneck to monetising AI-assisted shopping. Retailers and brands that win here won't be the ones with the flashiest AI chatbot — they'll be the ones who make data use and recommendation logic visible and explainable at the exact moment a shopper is deciding whether to trust the suggestion. In practice, that means treating AI transparency as a service-design problem, not a legal disclosure buried in a privacy policy, and giving shoppers graduated levels of AI delegation — starting with comparison and research, only earning the right to transact later once trust is demonstrated.