More than half of American consumers now turn to artificial intelligence for help with purchases. The shift happened quietly. Yet its implications stretch across retail boardrooms, tech platforms and supply chains.
Just 51% of U.S. consumers used at least one AI-powered tool to support shopping in the past month. That marks the first time NielsenIQ’s monthly tracker has crossed the halfway mark. The data comes from The Next Web, which reported on the latest release from the firm’s Agentic Commerce Tracker. Product recommendations led usage at 20%. Personal shopping assistants followed at 16%.
Consumers apply these tools to compare options. They judge value. They narrow choices before they buy. AI compresses decision-making time. It does not replace the shopper. At least not yet.
“Just months ago, AI-assisted shopping was viewed as an emerging behavior among early adopters. Today, it is now mainstream,” said Liz Buchanan, president for North America at NIQ. The quote appears in both the The Next Web coverage and the original Business Wire release distributed via Morningstar. Buchanan called the 50% threshold a defining moment for the industry.
The tracker surveys roughly 500 U.S. consumers each month. Questions focus on recent behavior. Results have climbed steadily over the past two quarters. Earlier NIQ readings showed 42% adoption in May 2026 and 36% earlier in the year. Momentum is clear. And it spans the full purchase path. From discovery to final selection.
Other recent surveys paint a similar picture, though numbers vary with question wording and time frames. A proprietary poll by Exploding Topics found 77.6% of consumers used AI for shopping or purchase decisions in the past six months. Product research dominated at 68.5%. Price comparison came in at 55.2%. The report, covered by Search Engine Land, also noted that 68.6% of users could recall an instance where AI prompted a purchase they otherwise would not have made.
Adobe’s data tells another part of the story. Generative AI traffic to U.S. retail sites jumped 393% in the first quarter of 2026 compared with a year earlier. During the prior holiday season the increase reached 693%. Those visitors convert at higher rates. They spend more time on sites. Revenue per visit runs 37% higher than non-AI traffic. TechCrunch detailed the findings in April.
Yet trust issues linger. Many shoppers verify AI suggestions against other sources. An April 2026 survey from Product.ai showed 43% of online shoppers used an AI assistant for research in the prior 90 days. But 86% still checked the recommendation elsewhere before buying. The “AI Autonomy Threshold” hovered low. Most capped comfortable spend without verification at $25 or $50. Details appeared in a PR Newswire release.
Retailers and tech giants race to meet the moment. Google builds a universal cart that works across retailers. It tracks prices, suggests discounts and integrates with Gemini. Partnerships with Walmart, Target and others rest on the Universal Commerce Protocol. OpenAI rolled out instant checkout inside ChatGPT for Etsy sellers and plans broader expansion. These moves, reported across The Verge and other outlets, signal a future where conversation replaces the search bar.
Demographics reveal sharp differences. Younger consumers adopt faster. Men, millennials, higher-income households and office workers led earlier waves according to NIQ’s February 2026 analysis. Gen Z and millennials show higher trust in AI recommendations over in-store staff in some polls. Older shoppers trail. But even boomers recorded notable gains in usage over the past year.
Categories matter too. Electronics, appliances, furniture and tech products see the strongest openness to AI assistance. These purchases involve research. They carry higher stakes. Routine items like groceries show different patterns. Auto-replenishment and subscription tools already reach 19% of consumers in NIQ data.
Retailers face a dual challenge. They must optimize for AI-driven traffic that now delivers better economics. At the same time many lack full readiness for agentic systems that act with greater autonomy. NVIDIA’s earlier survey found nine in ten retailers either using or piloting AI. Yet consumer-facing agent deployments still feel experimental. A Bloomberg piece on an AI-run San Francisco store highlighted both the promise and the hiccups. The bot over-ordered candles.
Privacy concerns and loss of control top barriers. Roughly half of consumers in multiple surveys hesitate to let AI store payment details or make fully independent decisions. Attitudes split between excitement for time savings and skepticism about accuracy or hidden biases. “Skeptical” and “suspicious” ranked as leading sentiments toward autonomous ordering tools in the Exploding Topics study.
The data does not suggest shopping will vanish into black-box agents overnight. Most current use remains assistive. ChatGPT dominates the tools consumers reach for, followed by Gemini. Many start with broad prompts for research or gift ideas. Then they cross-check. The behavior resembles how early search engines changed information gathering without eliminating judgment.
But the trajectory points higher. NIQ expects continued growth. Adobe sees AI traffic becoming a larger share of e-commerce. Tech companies pour resources into agentic protocols that let AI handle more of the journey. Retailers that treat their product data as an API for these systems stand to gain visibility. Those that don’t risk becoming invisible in the new discovery layer.
Executives at NIQ frame this as a shift from search to decision support. Consumers stay in control. AI simply accelerates how they reach conclusions. That nuance matters for brands. It suggests opportunity in richer product information, transparent comparisons and tools that augment rather than replace human preference.
So adoption crossed 50%. The number itself is a milestone. The real story sits in what comes next. Higher frequency of use. Deeper integration across categories. Greater willingness to delegate routine tasks. And persistent caution on big-ticket or emotionally charged purchases. Retail has entered a phase where AI shapes demand signals in real time. Companies that read those signals accurately will hold the advantage.
The quarterly trackers will keep climbing. Consumer comfort will evolve with experience. And the infrastructure behind the tools will mature. For now the message is straightforward. Half of America already shops with AI. The other half is not far behind.