Most consumers ‘excited’ to use AI search

Seventy-One percent of US consumers who are aware of artificial intelligence-powered search tools are excited to use them, according to a recent survey and white paper issued by National Research Group (NRG) which examines the impact of generative AI on conversational commerce.

NRG’s data suggests that this increased adoption of interaction with AI, as well as the rapid evolution of AI tools like ChatGPT’s GPT-4, will lead to the revitalization of conversational commerce.

Most notably, NRG’s survey shows that 50 percent of US consumers who are open to the idea of using conversational commerce are now willing to purchase products via chatbots from large retailers, while only slightly less (43 percent) are willing to do so from small or independent retailers.

While the above data suggests a growing trust in purchasing directly from retailers themselves, survey results indicate that there is still overall US consumer hesitation when it comes to purchasing products directly from chatbots.

In fact, NRG’s data reveals that less than half of US consumers (47 percent) are willing to purchase products from a chatbot through a social media messaging service.

The survey also highlights the stark difference between US consumer and Chinese consumer trends, as 83 percent of Chinese consumers polled by NRG are already comfortable with the idea of buying from chatbots.

NRG concludes that trust remains one of the biggest barriers to adoption of conversational commercial and its data suggests that retailers must leverage existing brand equity to add credibility to consumer-facing chatbots.

Additionally, data from NRG’s extensive report titled Cash to Code: The Future of Money suggests that consumers still highly value human interaction, and retailers should position conversational commerce as an extension of their human sales and customer service teams, rather than a full replacement.

Data for attitudes towards conversational commerce is based on a study of 1,502 consumers in the US and 700 consumers in China conducted in November 2022. Data for attitudes towards AI-powered search is based on a study of 1,000 consumers in the US conducted in February 2023.