According to a new survey from technology solutions company Commerce, Gen Z shoppers are nearly as likely to use AI platforms (33%) for product research as they are traditional search engines (37%). For millennials, 26% choose to use AI platforms compared to 40% who prefer search engines.
Meanwhile, just 13% of Gen X and only 3% of baby boomers prefer to use AI tools for product research. Twenty-three percent of Gen Z and 27% of millennials surveyed reported they are starting to trust AI platforms more than people for curated product recommendations.
More than four-in-10 (41%) survey respondents use learned language model tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity daily, while a slightly greater amount (46%) of Gen Z and millennials say they use the tools daily. Gen Z is nearly three-times more likely than Gen X to use AI for product research.
“Agentic commerce is no longer a concept on the horizon, it’s here, and it’s already the first stop in the shopping journey,” said Al Williams, general manager of B2C at Commerce, the parent company of BigCommerce, Feedonomics and Makeswift. “Gen Z and millennials now trust AI more than search, social or influencers to guide what they buy. The shift is clear: brands that show up inside AI-driven platforms will be the ones earning relevance and loyalty in this new era.”
Additional highlights from the Commerce survey include the following:
- Almost two-thirds (63%) of consumers abandon carts when forced to create accounts, underscoring ongoing friction in branded e-commerce site experiences.
- Almost half (48%) of all consumers maintain a “perpetual shopping list,” blurring the line between shopping as an activity and shopping as a state of mind.
- More than half (55%) of consumers said they would unsubscribe to a brand they like if they receive too many marketing messages from them.
Future Commerce and Commerce partnered with Centiment to conduct an online survey of 1,000 consumers in June 2025, evenly split between males and females.
Source: chainstoreage.com