Product advice? Finding deals? How shoppers want to be aided by AI

According to recent reporting by IPSOS, shoppers trust humans more than AI when it comes to product recommendations: 89% trust advice from friends/family, compared to just 51% for an e-commerce site's AI recommendations based on purchase history and 38% for generative AI tools like large language models.

However, the more familiar people are with generative AI, the more likely they are to trust suggestions by apps like ChatGPT or Bard: 81% of frequent generative AI users, compared to 34% of people who rarely use gen AI.

Shoppers want AI to assist and explain rather than directly recommend products. The top use cases were finding deals (24%) and explaining product differences (19%), rather than making direct recommendations.