Shoppers Trust Banks Over Retailers to Let AI Buy

Source Domain: www.pymnts.com

Today’s digital-first shoppers are happy to let artificial intelligence lend an electronic hand as they shop online for everything from clothing to groceries.

However, most are nowhere close to handing over the proverbial AI keys to an Amazon or Instacart.

The rapid development of the technology from a tool that can comparison-shop products into autonomous agents that go one step further and purchase on your behalf is the next stage of eCommerce. AI agents use your bank details, credit or debit card, or digital wallet and follow parameters you pre-set, like spending limits, materials and colors.

Digital marketplaces want shoppers not just to research and compare prices, but to close the deal by allowing agentic AI embedded within a merchant or marketplace platform to click “buy” and complete the purchase.

Nearly 7 in 10 adult consumers in the United States said they would be open to using an AI assistant for at least one of their routine tasks, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence report “From Assistive to Agentic AI: Consumers Wade Into Autonomous Commerce.” Of those, 69% would be at least somewhat comfortable letting AI handle meal planning and grocery shopping, while 63% would let it take care of gift buying.

Shoppers are busy, and 49% of consumers interested in using AI would delegate both routine purchases and large, research-driven purchases to an agentic AI assistant, instead of bouncing back to a merchant’s site or app for payment.

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But there’s one big hurdle to that happening en masse. While consumers express interest in delegating chores like grocery shopping and bill management to AI, their willingness to allow agentic AI to pull the buying trigger depends on whether they’re interacting with an established payment system. That means the agentic assistants of traditional banks, credit card networks and digital wallets.