AI IN COMMERCE CONSUMER RESEARCH REPORT
How AI is rewriting the buyer’s journey
We surveyed 1,128 consumers in the US to understand how AI is reshaping the consumer purchase journey. See where your brand needs to show up, where attribution is starting to break down, and how close consumers already are to letting AI buy for them.
Monique Göttert
Manager, Market Research and Analytics
impact.com
Product discovery now starts with AI. Among AI-active consumers, 47% began their last product search with an AI response, compared with 26% who started with a search engine.
For brands that built their discovery strategy around search, the consideration set is already formed before a consumer opens a search bar, visits a brand site, or makes a decision.
Attribution systems built for search-driven journeys are misclassifying AI-influenced traffic as direct or organic. Brand site visit rates hold steady, but more of the journeys behind those visits now begin elsewhere. The gap between what’s happening and what’s being measured is open.
Staying visible in that journey means holding two positions: the AI answer that forms the shortlist, and the publisher- and brand-owned properties where consumers confirm before they buy.
This report—the first in a three-part series on AI in commerce—maps how far AI has advanced in the buyer’s journey, how many purchasing decisions consumers are willing to hand over, and what brands can do to stay visible as that journey becomes harder to track.
Key findings:
AI has moved upstream of product discovery
Among AI-active consumers, nearly half began their last product search with an AI-generated response, and 73% bypassed standard search engines as a starting point.
Brand and retailer sites still close the deal, but AI shapes the shortlist first
72% of AI-active consumers still visit a brand or retailer site before making a purchase decision, but only 27% include brand websites as a primary research tool.
A measurable attribution gap is already open
5% of AI-active consumers verify on brand and retailer sites but skip the AI's embedded link, re-searching manually and arriving as direct or organic traffic with no trace of where the journey started.
Consumers will hand over the search before they hand over the purchase
24% would replace their current search methods entirely with a personalized AI shopping agent—but only 15% say full automation, handling everything from research to delivery, is the feature they'd value most.
In high-frequency purchase categories, the consideration set forms before the consumer starts shopping
Grocery & Household and Health & Wellness lead on AI auto-buy trust and attribution risk—brands not present in an AI answer in these categories may not enter the consideration set at all.
About the data
This report draws on an impact.com study of 1,128 AI-active U.S. consumers, conducted in May 2026.
All respondents:
Were ages 18-75
Identified themselves as active AI users
Made at least two online purchases in the past 30 days
The survey has a 95% confidence level with a +-2.92% margin of error. Researchers intentionally over-sampled high-earning consumers who self-reported a household income of $100K or greater as a predictive benchmark for the broader market.*
*For full methodology, see Appendix A.