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There’s no doubt that consumers’ usage of AI tools has ramped up very quickly, at least in cases with the likes of ChatGPT, which has become immensely popular. Generative AI can be enormously helpful to customers trying to sort through myriad product reviews or find inspiration and brand recommendations. But consumers are largely slow to adopt retail use cases.
While retailers have increasingly featured consumer-facing AI tools to drive customer support interactions, and personalized product recommendations should be able to capitalize on that surge, consumer adoption of the tech hasn’t grown substantially.
E-commerce AI tool adoption sees slow growth
In a year and a half, there has been marginal movement. In late 2023 22% of survey respondents said they’d used an AI chat bot on a retailer’s website, in 2025 that number is 25%, which is within margin of error. We’ve seen similarly slow growth in consumers asking AI tools for shopping recommendations, or using e-commerce AI shopping assistants.
Some groups are adapting to AI more quickly: Men, millennials and higher-income households use AI e-commerce tools at higher rates than the general public, which is consistent with the profile of AI super users.
It’s noteworthy that consumer sentiment about the helpfulness of AI tools in e-commerce has been static over the last year and a half as well. In an October 2023 survey, 47% of respondents said an AI-powered shopping assistant would be “very” or “somewhat helpful,” and that number is virtually identical in May of 2025.
In that same time period, the share of users of AI shopping assistants who rated the tech as “confusing” fell 8 percentage points from 43% to 35%, but the share who rated it as “useful” also fell, from 87% to 80%. There’s better news for AI-generated shopping suggestions, which fewer shoppers see as generic (73% in 2023 versus 58% in 2025).
AI customer service is popular, but people overwhelmingly prefer human support
Among the e-commerce AI use cases tested, chatbots were used most often, but humans are still hesitant to lean on AI for service issues. Very few people express a preference for AI-led customer service. In a series of six scenarios, about two-thirds of respondents preferred human support.
While the promise of time savings was the most compelling of all tested scenarios for why respondents would turn to AI — 16% said they would rather have their question answered instantly by AI — a much higher share (62%) still would prefer to wait for human support.
Most of us have had frustrating customer service experiences with both human representatives and bots, but it’s clear that consumers don’t have faith that a robot can understand the nuance of their issue and provide an adequate resolution in the way a human (theoretically) can. Bots are often just conversational versions of existing self-service tools, so it’s reasonable to assume that many customers have already tried to self-serve before opening a chat window.
Barriers to AI adoption in e-commerce include privacy and accuracy concerns
For the bulk of shoppers who are hesitant about AI, assuring consumers of the safety and security of their personal data is paramount. AI is an enormously helpful tool, but it does come with risks. From workers concerned about losing jobs to automation, to AI image fails going viral online, it’s not surprising that consumers approach the tech with skepticism.
Still, consumers are increasingly finding use cases for AI in their daily lives, from what to make for dinner tonight to creating a packing and shopping list for an upcoming vacation. Retail and e-commerce brands should invest in continuous understanding of consumers’ use of the tech as it evolves quickly. Brands with a tech-savvy audience have more opportunity to grow the usage of their own tools, but for most, consumers remain reticent.
AI’s consumer-facing use cases stretch beyond e-commerce
AI has practical shopping applications IRL as well. When asked if they’ve used AI tools while shopping in person, nearly one-in-five shoppers said they used AI to aid their decision-making for the best products to buy. Unsurprisingly, millennials are also out in front on adoption of AI in their daily shopping.
For retailers, this means thinking of AI akin to an influencer. When asked how much they trust product recommendations for beauty and skincare from AI, 9% of respondents said they trust AI recommendations “a lot,” and 22% said “somewhat.” The numbers were nearly identical for influencers, celebrities and journalists; only friends and family earned markedly higher trust. Trust trends were similar for recommendations for food, entertainment, personal finance and travel decisions.