Consumers are increasingly using AI platforms to inform their supplement choices, according to new research commissioned by a manufacturer.
Thorne, a wellness products firm with a manufacturing facility in South Carolina, released the results of its Wellness Confidence Gap report, which reveals how consumers are getting their wellness information and how they are turning in ever greater numbers to artificial intelligence platforms.
The research was conducted by survey firm Censuswide and included more than 3,000 responses, divided evenly between a group reflecting the national demographic breakdown, one group of Gen Z participants and another group of Millennials over 18 years of age.
Report shows consumers find supplement marketplace confusing
The report reveals that while health and wellness information is increasingly available to consumers, many of them find it to be either overwhelming or confusing. More than half of consumers said they are unsure which supplements are right for them, and about the same number said there is too much conflicting information.
The report found that Americans are increasingly relying on AI platforms to help sort through that overabundance of information, with 41% of all respondents saying they trust AI platforms and 48% of Millennials saying they use health advice from that source.
The company used the research to highlight its own consumer-facing AI platform, called Taia. The company claims it is “trained on more than 40 years of clinical studies, practitioner expertise and product science.”
Dr. AI has taken over Dr. Google’s practice
Experts contacted by SupplySide Supplement Journal said that while using the acronym “AI” in relation to consumer behavior could convey an atmosphere of either impending doom or unlimited promise (depending on your perspective), it’s really an extension of longstanding trends in search behavior.
“It used to be Dr. Google but now it’s Dr. AI,” said Doug Lynch, principal in the consulting firm MarketWell Nutrition.
Lynch noted that standard search results were skewed by who had paid for which search terms. AI-powered searches are more wide-ranging for the moment, which is both empowering and threatening.
“In the old days you had to go to the GNC salesperson to find out about which supplement to take. Those salespeople tended to be compensated based on how much they sold. That was the old way of doing things,” Lynch said.
“Now, more and more consumers are entering their symptoms into these chatbots, and they are going to act upon that printout,” he added.
Lynch noted that mistakes or “hallucinations” made by AI are still a real problem. If consumers don’t know how to ask the right questions, how reliable are the recommendations?
Take the case of berberine, which is still a very hot weight management ingredient based on a recent social media craze that labeled it “nature’s Ozempic.” Lynch noted that there are dozens of berberine ingredients on the market, some of which closely match what was used in the current but modest body of research on the ingredient. But others don’t.
For example, he said if a consumer simply asked, “What’s the best berberine?” that could generate a very different response from, “Only show me berberine supplements that are made with extracts that match the composition and concentration of what was used in the clinical research.”
Imprecision characterizes natural products research
Afif Ghannoum, CEO of consulting firm CPG Radar as well as chairman of the probiotics brand BIOHM Health, said that imprecision is still rife within the body of research on dietary supplements, which complicates the task of sorting through it using AI tools.
“Omega-3s show up 70 different ways on labels, for example. Consumers just call it fish oil. Other ingredients could show up under the Latin names for the botanicals,” he said.
“We have seen AI bots look at magnesium glycinate and magnesium citrate and normalize it as all the same thing. Those are very different ingredients,” he said.
Ghannoum said there’s no turning back now, though. Brands must accommodate themselves to the new reality of how consumers are accessing information.
“That horse has left the barn,” he said.
The best hope for using AI to successfully connect with supplement consumers would be to offer it in a structured dashboard-type scenario, so that variables such as ingredient form and concentration could be accounted for, he suggested.