Bloomreach survey data<\/a> suggests 60% of consumers are using AI for shopping decisions, according to Luca Cian, a professor at the University of Virginia\u2019s Darden School of Business. In a recent customer survey, 46% of people say they trust AI more than friends for certain choices, he said.\n<\/p>\n\u201cWe are sort of witnessing a big shift in terms of shopping in general, and how AI can help through shopping specifically,\u201d Cian told WTOP.<\/p>\n
Sometimes, shoppers can be overwhelmed at the number of choices they\u2019re facing, Cian said. AI can help because it can create categories or exclude some products while recommending others.<\/p>\n
Shoppers are turning to software such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, and asking what items to buy given a specific budget.<\/p>\n
Some people are drawn to AI technology because of its speed, Cian said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to make a decision, I\u2019m not calling my friends to see what they\u2019re doing,\u201d Cian said. \u201cMaybe it takes two hours of phone calls. They\u2019re going to tell me how they feel or complain about something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shoppers also perceive AI to be more objective and lacking a social motivation that a friend might have to influence a decision. For example, if a friend buys something, they may be more likely to want you to buy the same thing or something similar.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlgorithmic recommendations seem more trustworthy for certain decisions,\u201d Cian said.<\/p>\n
Humans trump AI when shopping for experiences<\/p>\n
Consumers trust AI recommendations over human ones when considering a practical, functional decision, Cian said. That\u2019s particularly prevalent for back-to-school shopping, because many school products fall into that category.<\/p>\n
However, shoppers prefer humans over AI when thinking about experiential or emotional purchases, Cian said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople tend to think that AI is not able to understand aesthetics or trends; while in reality, if the AI is well done, they can do it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In certain cases, a company\u2019s website may use an algorithm or AI to suggest other possible purchases, Cian said. Walmart and Amazon take that approach, but many shoppers are turning to specific software to ask what to buy.<\/p>\n
Businesses such as Netflix reframe their AI recommendations so consumers are more likely to trust them, he said. So, because a movie is connected to emotions, Netflix uses AI but frames it as \u201cpeople like you\u201d are choosing a particular movie.<\/p>\n
AI is compressing the traditional marketing funnel, Cian said. If someone asks for a back-to-school shopping recommendation, AI can present three to five options.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo this means that the company, right now, they have to really shift a little bit of their budget from what was traditional marketing to creating content that can be picked up by the large language models\u201d of AI, he said.<\/p>\n
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u00a9 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As kids and adults across the D.C. region finish up their back-to-school shopping ahead of the first day…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,56445,3195,64540,64541,40523,74,64542],"class_list":["post-95403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-back-to-school-shopping","tag-chatgpt","tag-darden-school-of-business","tag-luca-cian","tag-scott-gelman","tag-technology","tag-university-of-virginia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}